Red Cat
by MonkeyMoa
Summary: In a misguided attempt to fulfill a marriage promise, Genma Saotome throws his daughter, Ranma, into the Spring of the Drowned Man. However, he mess up and throws her into the Spring of The Drowned Cat instead. Hilarity Ensues.
1. Introduction

**Introduction**

"Yes! Finally! We are in Jusenkyo!"

After numerous weeks of travel, Master of the Saotome-Style of Anything Goes Martial Arts Genma Saotome and his daughter, Ranma, finally reached their destination. The old man had heard about these marvelous training grounds and after convincing some locals (who barely understood Japanese) to read the guide for him just to make sure he was in correct place, he discovered the Cursed Springs!

Each spring contains a magical curse, if he just could find the correct one, then…

Yes! If he finds the Spring of Drowned Man, he can finally fulfill the promises he made!

The Guide toured them through the springs, trying to warn them all the way: "Honorable client should not come here, each spring is…"

"Yes, yes, I know!" interrupted Genma, which made the guide frown in confusion. "C'mon, boy!" he screamed to his daughter while jumping to a nearby bamboo pole sticking out of one of the springs.

"I'm a girl, you jackass! When you're gonna learn!?" she followed him, jumping into another bamboo pole.

"Humph! I refuse to acknowledge you as a girl! Girls are weak and crybabies, but you're as strong as me and _almost_ never cries! Therefore you are a boy!" He prepared a one legged instance and his daughter did the same.

"Goddammit, Pops, you're rambling about that again!?" She jumped and tried to kick him, but he jumped to another post just in time. "Why you're so obsessed with my gender!? It's insulting! I was born a girl and I feel like a girl, so I. AM. A. FUCKING. GIRL!" She punctuated each word with an attack, but her father dodged each attack at the last moment. "STOP SO I CAN HIT YOUR NONSENSE GUTS UNTIL THEY START TO MAKE SENSE!"

"Nag, nag, nag! Is that all you do?! God, you're like a girl or something!" he dodged another close kick to his face.

"I AM A GIRL!" she was so frustrated that she did not even notice when he grabbed her ankle until it was too late. With a sing-song voice, her father replied:

"Not anymore~!"

"Wait, wha-!" she is then launched suddenly into one of the springs, the one Genma was sure to be the Spring of The Drowned Man.

"Humph! I always wished for a boy and a boy is what I'm getting!" her father said crossing his arms in triumph.

Quickly approaching the fallen girl, the Jusenkyo Guide verified which Cursed Spring she fell into.

"Oh, no! Honorable client, you suffered terrible fate! This be Spring of Drowned Cat, this spring has tragic story of cat that drowned in it 1800 years ago!" hearing this, Genma immediately got desperate.

"Wait, did you say cat!?"

The spring immediately exploded and a loud and terrifying yowl scared both men.


	2. Chapter 1 - Red Cat

**Author's Foreword:**

I really love Ranma 1/2! I remember when I was a pre-teen waiting patiently to watch it at a brazillian tv block for anime that only showed up after midnight, I just really loved it!

Although, I never really finished watching the anime or reading the manga.

Oh well.

But anyway! Lately I've been reading a lot of Ranma 1/2 fanfiction and I thought "Well, I could try my hand at this. And do some interesting AU stuff while I'm at it."

So, this is me trying my hand at a more zany comedy. Not sure if I'll succeed, but I'm going for something of the likes of **"The Key to a Successful Interview"** by The Sage of Toads, but maybe not as cracky.

On this fic, Ranma starts as a girl because, well, because I wanted, really. I could have gone for a male Ranma, but half of fun of the series comes from the series of unfortunate coincidences caused by his original curse, so I thought it would be less fun (for me) if Ranma missed out half of his unwanted romantic pursuers.

Also, I would like some feedback on the comedy of this thing. While I think that I can be funny, I don't think I'm funny _most_ of the time. So, tips and feedback on how I'm doing are welcome.

But anyway, let's get this show on the road.

21/11/2018 – Edited some wording and added a plot point that will make some characters actions make more sense.

xxx

* * *

 **Chapter 1 – Red Cat**

AKANE SMASH!

A bunch of broken cement blocks rested under the long-haired bluenette. The dust covered her hands and karate gi, making her feel like taking a bath. She also needed the bath to relax a little because her idiotic Father made a stupid decision without any input from her or her sisters.

What the fuck!? Why the hell did he made a marriage arrangement even before any of them had been born!? What's wrong with him!?

 _Sigh._

She knew it was too much positivity to expect better from her Father. Apparently, Mother was the only one who could put some sense on that head of his, and now that she is… gone, he is as good at making good decisions as a rock is good at swimming.

She isn't sure if that was the case before he married, but this stunt pointed to that direction.

Now she had to wait for that Ranma guy to appear!

God, she just hopped that he wasn't a jerk. While the experience wouldn't improve – a boy is a boy, after all –, at least it wouldn't be incredibly insufferable. She already had to deal with all those stupid motherfuckers at her school, with Kuno-senpai being the worst of the bunch.

Freaking morons.

A movement on the corner of her eyes interrupted her thoughts.

She approached the corner of the dojo, listening to a weird sound, like an irritated grumble of a creature extremely dissatisfied with the estate of their lives and this god forsaken unfair world. She could relate.

She followed the sound until she found a completely soaked cat with reddish fur. Huh, weird color for a cat, although it's weirder that it actually had what appeared to be a very small braided ponytail in it's head.

Did… did someone glue that on the poor thing?

Well, the poor cat seemed to have suffered a lot until it found the dojo. She wondered for a bit why it did not go to someplace else to protect itself from the rain, it's not like her family dojo is the only dry place around the neighborhood. She dismissed that immediately when she tried to pick the cat.

The cat voiced it's displeasure to being picked out of the ground, but otherwise didn't attack her. But she still decided that she needed to acquire it's trust before it decided to use their claws on her.

Scratch, scratch, scratch…

The cat start to purr in approval to being scratched behind the ears.

Yes, this seemed to be a good start.

She searched for a towel and found an unused one near the dojo entrance. She starts to dry the poor thing until it looked better. She noticed that the feline had very pretty blue eyes then. It responded the affection by rubbing itself against her cheeks.

 _So cute!_

That's it, she is adopting this cat regardless of what her sisters and father said. It was only fair after this whole marriage ordeal.

She wandered out of the dojo to present her newfound pet to the rest of her family, but instead walked into an otherworldly scene that would be more appropriate to a cartoon.

"Okay, Dad, why…" she couldn't believe she was going to say that. "…Why there is a panda on the living room? And… of all things, playing shogi while drinking tea with you!?"

Surreal. That's the word she wanted to describe this scene.

Her Father shifted uncomfortably in his place. "Ah, sweetie, this, uh, there's a perfect explanation for this, we were just waiting for you and Nabiki to show up to explain the situation."

"I heard my name, what is…" The middle sister appeared from the stairs and promptly stopped, absorbing the scene. "Oooooooookay, I'll just assume that this has a perfectly reasonable explanation."

"It does." Said sign that the panda pulled out of thin air. The animal then turned the sign and it said: "it's a curse."

"I… what." Was all that the younger sister managed to say.

As nobody seemed to break the weird silence that settled then, Nabiki prompted:

"Well, this certainly sounds amusing. Go on."

"Let me just get some hot water first." Said the sign. It was amazing how fast the panda could change what they said, they didn't even see the animal writing anything!

It was then that the older sister appeared.

"Here's the hot water your friend requested, Dad." She deposited the kettle in front of the panda, who bowed a little before picking it and drenching himself with hot water.

Which immediately transformed him into a bald man with glasses and a filthy karate gi.

"My name is Genma Saotome, father of Ranma Saotome and current master of the Saotome Style Anything Goes Martial Arts."

The shock was so big that nobody screamed.

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!?"

Except for Akane, that is.

"Good lord, do you need to be so loud!?" the old man started to soothe his ears in vain, they were already screwed by the girl's outburst. "Soun, please, do something about this!"

The Tendo patriarch nodded and approached his younger daughter. "Sweetie, you don't need to be so alarmed, I did tell you that things like magic and curses do exist."

"Yeah, but listening to it and seeing it are two completely different things!"

"Akane, listen… Is that a cat?" Soun then noticed the red cat that his daughter secured.

"Ah, yeah, I found it all wet at the dojo and…"

"A cat you say?" interrupted Genma.

He looked at the animal on Akane's firm but gentle grip.

Then immediately launched the hot water at the girl and the animal.

"WHAT THE HELL!?" _Two_ feminine voices screamed.

Akane quickly forgot the fact that she is currently all wet when she noticed that she was now hugging a red-haired girl with a pigtail using a cleaner but still dirty karate gi. They both screamed and quickly separated from each other.

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!?" They screamed in unison. "I ASKED FIRST, YOU MORON! STOP WITH THIS RIGHT NOW, I'M WARNING YOU!"

Gladly, for the sake of everybody ears, Genma interrupted their little squabble. "Oh, they are already getting along."

"Where I even am now, Pops!?" the red-haired girl was very confused and annoyed, which sorta explained why she was almost choking her dad trying to get answers.

"Calm down, you insufferable excuse for a martial artist!" Genma punched her head. She stops, annoyed, but waiting for the answer. "Ok, we're at the Tendos. Remember them? I talked about them to you."

"Oh, you mean the guys that you promised something that YOU CAN'T FULFILL!?"

"Hello, there." The older sister interrupted the pigtailed girl's new assault on her father with a light touch on her shoulder. "My name is Kasumi Tendo, could you be a dear and clarify what you're talking about? Start by your name."

The girl looked at the gentle and motherly eyes of the older sister, which made feel compelled to calm down a little. She then sighed and redirected herself to the rest of the family.

"My name is Ranma Saotome, _daughter_ of Genma Saotome and current heir of the Saotome Style Anything Goes Martial Arts."

…

"Well, that certainly is amusing!" Nabiki smiled with a sparkle of mischief.

"Wha-!" Soun appeared to be suffering some sort of breakdown if the lack of color to his face and shocked expression where any indication. "What's the meaning of this, Saotome!? You told me you had a son!"

"You see, old friend," started Genma with a sigh, "that's why I took Ranma to the legendary training grounds, Jusenkyo."

"Wait, that place Master commented once? The one with hundreds of cursed springs?"

"Wait, you already knew!?" Ranma screamed. "YOU SAID THAT YOU DIDN'T UNDERSTAND CHINESE AND YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE CURSES BECAUSE OF THAT!"

"What choice I had!? I needed a son to fulfill the promise I made with my friend, not a daughter!"

A very angry vein appeared on Ranma's forehead, threatening to pop and drench everybody in a bloody eruption.

"You…! You…! YOU WANTED TO THROW ME AT THE SPRING OF THE DROWNED MAN!?" Everybody slightly stepped back at that moment because of the amount of killing intent emitting from the girl was insane.

"Be reasonable, boy…"

"I AM A FUCKING GIRL, YOU JACKASS!" and then she punched him so hard that he went through the walls and landed outside, where it was still raining. A very angry panda came back and tried to kick her, but Ranma dodged and kicked him in square in the head, knocking him out cold. "BECAUSE OF YOU I'M LIVING MY WORST NIGHTMARE! YOU FUCKING EXCUSE OF A FATHER, HOW THE HELL I'M RELATED TO YOU!?"

She panted angrily at the same place, looking at the oversized panda sporting a big swollen bump on the head and frothing from the mouth. She then turned to the Tendos. Staring at their scared faces, she immediately felt shrinking until she disappeared. She sits again, scratching behind her own ears.

"Uh… I'm very sorry for this. All of it." Kasumi then offered her some tea. Calming down a bit, she continued. "It's just… it's so unfair, y'know? He always does these things behind my back, never really threats me as a girl and this" she pointed to her own body "was the last straw. This curse is especially terrible to me."

Righting herself, Akane then interrupted her. "What? Why? You… seemed calm when you were a ca…"

"PLEASE DON'T SAY IT, EVEN JUST SAYING IT MAKES A CHILL GOES DOWN MY SPINE!" They were all startled by the sudden outburst. Was this girl in need of some medical drugs or what?

Panting a bit, she calmed down. "Ok, sorry again! It's just that I'm terribly afraid of c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c…!"

"Cats?" prompted Nabiki.

"DON' SAY IT! I ASKED TO NOT SAY IT AND YOU SAID IT!"

She started to rock herself back and forth in the same place, chanting something about being in a happy place, away from any kind of feline that would be able to hurt her, there's no fish attached to her, she wasn't locked with a bunch of hungry cats, she was free! There's no Felix, there's no Garfield, there's no Hello Kitty! She is in her happy place!

"What. The. Hell." Was all Akane and Nabiki could say about the new evidence against the girl's sanity.

"Oh… OH!" exclaimed the Tendo patriarch, realization downing on him. "I… I think I know what is happening to her." He looked at his old friend and training partner. "Dammit, Saotome, I thought that manual was a joke, why did you take that seriously!?"

"What is it, Dad?" asked Kasumi.

 _Sigh._ "Okay, this will sound insane, but there's a forbidden martial art called Neko-ken, it's fabled to be incredibly powerful, even capable of giving the user the ability to use chi claws like a cat."

"Oh, that sounds kind of awesome!" exclaimed Akane.

"Buuuuuut…?" continued Nabiki.

"…To achieve that kind of skill, the 'training', if you can call it that, consists of tying up a bunch of fish-based products to the student's body and then locking them with a bunch of cats that were starving for days." He then pointed to Ranma. "That's the result."

"Oh." Akane could only imagine what that was like and felt a chill go down her spine.

"Oh, the poor thing must have PTSD or something similar!" Kasumi touched her cheek in worry, observing the girl still going on with her attempt to soothe herself with madness chanting.

"Why someone would try something so idiotic? Wasn't there a warning against it or something?" said Nabiki, still a bit freaked out by Ranma's Happy Place Meditation Chant.

"That's the thing. I thought it was a joke because the last page of the manual clearly says 'Only a fool would actually try this training regimen.' I didn't think that Genma would take that seriously."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Akane interrupted. "But she wasn't freaked out when I first met her as a cat! Sure, she was annoyed at being wet, but not really, y'know, doing the cat equivalent of… that." She pointed to the girl who started to sing to herself about the clear air of the mountains and delicious homemade cookies.

"That's because, grumph" Genma, who managed to return to human form while no one was paying attention, adjusted himself besides his daughter, "when she enters the Neko-ken state, she forgets that she is human and starts to think like a cat."

"Wait, what!?" Akane felt like hitting herself. How many times she said a variation of "wait, what" in the last half-hour?

"That just adds to the insanity of all this." Nabiki commented.

"I recognize my errors" they heard something that suspiciously sounded like a snorting 'yeah, right' when Genma said that. He sent an annoyed look to his daughter, still going back and forth in the same place chanting her mad song about milk and chocolate. He then turned to his old friend. "I just need some place to rest before we decide what to do, Tendo."

"I…" Soun looked around, to his daughters, to the daughter of his friend and then finally to his old buddy. "Urgh, ok, Saotome, you're our guest for now."

The silence afterwards was not made less awkward by the red-head's madness chant, currently cycling back to denying the existence of other cartoon cats like Tom and Sylvester.

Nabiki was the first to say something. "Ok, can… can someone do something about her? It's getting even more creepy by the minute."

"She should calm down if you take her to a hot bath." Explained Genma.

"Oh, in that case I'll prepare the bath." Kasumi got up and went to the stairs, but not before turning to her youngest sister. "Akane, can you be a dear and take Ranma with you? I think she would appreciate the company."

Akane shifted uncomfortably at the place she was sitting. "Uh, do I have to? I mean, I feel sorry for her too, but she is kind of creeping me ou…" one look from her _gentle_ older sister was all she needed to change gears. "Sure, why not! I'll show her the dojo while you prepare the bath!"

Akane picked the other girl with surprising ease, Ranma didn't even change from her fetal position, it was like she was a statue cast that way. Only that it was one of those creepy statues that said insanities to anyone who cared to listen.

Nabiki looked at her sister and the crazy girl go to the dojo. "Well, the fun has ended for now, I guess." She lifted herself and went to the stairs. Time to think how she can profit from this.

As Soun and Genma where left alone, the Tendo patriarch started to weep. "Oh, now the schools will never be joined!"

Genma looked at his friend and then quickly looked around the room. Sure that nobody would listen to him, he approached his friend. "I… uh wouldn't say that is completely impossible."

"Uh? What do you mean, Genma?"

Looking around one more time, he turned conspiratorially. "My daughter is already half way there to being a boy, y'know?"

Soun looked confused. "I…. don't think I understand…"

"She eats the same kind of fruit you and I eat."

"Uhn?"

"She plays for the other team."

"What are you…? What does sports have to do with this!?" Tendo asked annoyed.

Genma felt like smacking his friend on the face. "Ranma likes girls."

Soun looked at his friend wide-eyed.

"Oh."

"Oh, indeed." He then sit in front of his friend. "The training trip to Jusenkyo was just an excuse to make it more… acceptable. Make it legal at the eyes of the law, y'know?"

"But doesn't Ranma have documents showing that she was born a girl?"

"Pfff, like I don't know how make fake documents." Soun gave him a hard look in the eyes and he sweated nervously. "A-Anyway, we can still join the schools, although it would be through an unofficial marriage rather than a legal one."

"Well, I… I guess it's better than nothing… It's not unlike how people did it at ancestral times, right? They only had priests and their words…"

"That's the spirit!"

"But… do you think Ranma will accept it? It's not really as biding as a marriage by law…"

"Well, your youngest is already all buddy-buddy with my daughter, we just need to push that to full blown romance! What do you say?"

Soun thought for a bit.

"Still, that doesn't guarantee that… you know, that one of them will have a child."

"So what? After all I've got through this training trip, I know a thing or two that can probably solve such a _little issue_ as that!" to his friends confused face, Genma added. "Magic, Tendo. Remember me transforming into a panda? A red cat transforming into my daughter? There must be a magical way to do what we need to happen. Are you with me or not?"

Scrunching his face in thought, Soun said:

"I really want to join the schools…"

 _Sigh._

"I agree."


	3. Chapter 2 - Misunderstandings

**Author's Foreword:**

To be completely honest, I don't know where I'm going with this.

Although, I'm having fun with this anyway, and I guess that's what matters, right?

21/11/2018 – Changed some wording and corrected a few errors.

xxx

* * *

 **Chapter 2 – Misunderstandings are The Blood of This Series**

Akane tested the waters of the bathtub. By the description of the curse, this amount of hotness was just right for Ranma to bath without repercussions. She then looked at her companion for the time.

She still looked like a statue cast in the fetal position, but her chanting reduced to some eerily low mumbling that the brunette couldn't decide if it was better or worse than before. God, she really hopes this works out, she is getting creeped out by the redhead.

She picked the other girl, who still did a pretty great impression of an inanimate object and didn't make any movement, and unceremoniously dumped her on the bathtub. The effect was immediate.

"AAAGH! WHAT IS HAPPENING!?"

On a second thought, she probably should have taken out her clothes first, but eh, she was so stiff that would have been hard to do anyway.

Akane approached the soaked girl, crouching down a bit so they could both see each other at eye-level.

"Sorry, sorry! You were kind of shell shocked back there and we thought that a relaxing bath should calm down your nerves." That seemed to have the effect she wanted and the redhead started to relax.

"Thanks… I… am very sorry… for that creepy show back there…" She sighed. "Th-th-th-th-those… animals… really traumatized me when I was little."

"Oh, I heard from dad about the Neko-ken. Seems like some really harsh training."

"'Harsh' doesn't even start to describe it." She snorted.

They were quiet for a moment. Akane was the first to say something.

"So, my name is Akane!" she said with a smile that made the other girl blush.

"Ah…! Well, uh, nice to meet you. My name is Ranma, but you already know that, I guess." The redhead said awkwardly. "Uh, wait, what are you doing?"

"Ah, well, we should try to save water costs, the dojo isn't doing so well lately. You should strip too." Akane started to took her karate gi out and started to do the same for her underwear when Ranma asked. She looked at the face of redhead, which was in the same color as her hair. The bluenette chalked that up to the hot water, but decided to ask anyway. "What, are you shy or something?"

"I… uh… well, I never bathed with other girls, only with my dad."

"That must have been hard to witness."

"Let's just say that after some time, you get used to the pain." She chuckled. "But yeah, I didn't even bath that much on the way here… You know, it's hard to get hot water when travelling around the world."

Akane made a pained expression. "Ugh, I can't even imagine not cleaning myself for more than a day. I don't know how you supported it." She then entered the bathtub with Ranma, whose red face seemed to follow every motion with great interest.

"L-like I said, y-you get used to the pain, you don't h-h-have that m-much choice when travelling like the way we d-did." Dammit, she was doing that thing again when she sees a hot girl! God, she really hoped Akane didn't notice the stutter.

She did, though. "Are you okay? You're looking like you're with some kind of fever."

"N-nothing! J-just, ah, embarrassed a bit! Like I said, I never bathed with other girls, so…"

Akane then started to move to get out of the bathtub. "Oh, well, if I'm making things awkward I could always-"

"NO!" Ranma grabbed her hand. "No, just…! Err, don't need to worry a-about it! It's just… just another thing I need to get used to."

"Oh, ok then." Akane then relaxed in the water once more.

They stayed quiet for the entirety of the bath after Ranma finally took off her clothes.

Oh, god, this was going terribly bad, Ranma realy hoped that things would start to get less awkward later on.

They heard a knock on the bathroom door and Akane's eldest sister, Kasumi, said through the door:

"Akane, Ranma-chan, we decided that you two should share Akane's bedroom instead of sleeping with Saotome-san on the dojo. I already prepared a futon there."

Yep, it got worse for the redhead.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, Ranma didn't sleep well due to nervousness of sharing a room with Akane. The youngest Tendo was great and seemed to take her shyness in stride, but the fact that she just witnessed that girl naked and then was sleeping in the same room as her made her mind restless.

Good lord, she was an awkward mess. She just hoped it got better in the morning.

Obviously it didn't.

"PREPARE YOURSELF, BOY!" Genma screamed kicking the door out and jumping at a startled Ranma who barely got to sleep. "IT'S TIME FOR YOUR MORNING PRACTI-OUGH!"

Genma went through the window and landed square on the koi pound outside. Akane then recoiled her iron first of doom.

"How…! How dare he to invade a ladies' bedroom!?" She puffed angrily. "Dammit, now I have to fix the window!"

"Ah, I guess Pops didn't learn yet that he shouldn't do this 'morning practice' in the house of others…" Ranma commented, now wide-awake, admiring Akane's handiwork and the Genma-shaped hoped where the window once was. When she noticed that she was blushing again, the redhead slapped both her cheeks and tried to pass that off as trying to wake herself up. She just managed to attract a weird look from the bluenette. "T-thanks for saving me from that pain in the ass, at least today."

"Wait, he did that when you travelled?" Ranma nodded. "Everyday!?" another nod. Akane felt stressed out with just the thought of something like that as a daily routine.

"Yes, it was part of my training, at least that's what he says." Ranma shrugged. "Apparently his Master did the same to him and your dad, if his surprisingly infrequent drunken ramblings are true."

"Urgh, I guess I should thanks Daddy for not doing that to me." Then she was hit by a thought. "Say, I didn't see you fight yet, now that I think about it."

"Oh, we could spar later, then!" the shorter girl said excitedly. She then smirked confidently. "I hope you're ready to get your ass kicked!"

"Oh, you're on!" Akane responded with an equally excited smile. "Just because I didn't go to a training trip, doesn't mean that I can't stomp you to the ground!"

They laughed a bit and got up to change themselves for the day. Akane changed to her school uniform while Ranma settled for her usual Chinese silks.

The youngest Tendo looked to her with a confused expression. "Do you only have those clothes?"

The redhead shrugged. "Eh, when you travel a lot you have to buy clothes in batches, it's faster to pick repeated ones."

The bluenette decided to ignore that and they both went to eat some breakfast. When they reached the rest of the family, they found Soun reading his journal, Nabiki already in her uniform and lazily changing channels on the tv, Kasumi serving plates to the newcomers and the panda drinking tea while sporting a rather big bump on his head covered by a comically big band-aid with a smile drawn upon it. He huffed when he noticed Akane and his daughter entering the room, but picked some papers from nowhere and tossed them to Ranma, who picked it expertly.

"School admission papers?" She was confused, when did he have time to enroll her on a school?

"We're going to stay here for a while, we better use that time to make you less dumb." Said the sign in her Father's writing.

"Oi! If you think I'll just take that and…!" Akane taking the papers from her hand interrupted her.

"Hey, it's the same school Nabiki and I go!" She smiled and then turned to Ranma. "Isn't that nice?"

"Y-yeah…" The half-cat girl blushed with the smile the other girl sent. God, she was going to be the death of her.

"So nice that we're going to be late because of Tomato-head over there." Said Nabiki while getting out of the room. She had waited for too long for them.

"AAAH, SHE IS RIGHT!" Akane screamed looking at the clock. She immediately ate the breakfast her elder sister so _lovingly_ prepared as fast as she could, grabbed Ranma's hand (who barely started eating) and run out of the house.

On the way to Furinkan School, Akane noticed two things: Nabiki, somehow, was already nowhere to be seen. The other thing was that Fate really liked to fuck up with Ranma, as a lot of water hazards (save raining) started to try to hit her.

After evading _a third_ old lady watering her plants (they oddly looked the same even though they were separated by entirely different blocks), Ranma sighed in relief when the school building entered in their view. Akane almost felt the same relief, she didn't want a repeat of yesterday's weirdness, but that was immediately crushed when she caught sight of the literal army of boys clad in different sports equipment coming at their way.

"I hate boys." She whispered.

"Wait, what?" asked the confused redhead.

"I hate boys. I hate boys. I hate boys…!" The whispers started to turn into a rhythmic shout.

"Uhn, Akane, are you okay…?"

"I HATE BOYS! I HATE BOYS! I HATE BOYS! I HATE BOYS!"

"Seriously, you're scaring me!" Ranma shouted. Only when they put their foot on the school grounds that the redhead actually noticed what was happening.

"Akane Tendo! We're here to challenge you for the rights to have a date with you! Prepare yourself!" Screamed a boy clad in hockey protection gear.

"I HATE YOU ALL, GO TO HELL WITH YOUR STUPID CHALLENGES, YOU ARMY OF PERVERTED MORONS!" and then Akane started to open a path through the army, with boys flying around right and left with each punch she lashed at then.

Ranma stood there, dumbfounded and awestruck. She noticed that a trail of blood started to drip from her nose. She cleaned it before it made a mess and then reached a conclusion.

A very obvious conclusion.

"…Fuck." Was all she managed to say after her realization.

Akane stood there, puffing angrily, surrounded by fallen challengers. That scene looked awfully like the aftermath of a demonic creature's rampage over an army of soldiers. Ranma was having a hard time keeping her face clean of blood.

"Stay… the FUCK…! DOWN!"

Then they heard a newcomer. "Truly, a boorish lot, wouldn't thy say, my fairest Akane Tendo?"

Coming out of a tree, like a fucking creeper, was a teenager barely older than Akane and Ranma, clad in a formal kendo uniform and holding a boken. The petit redhead cautiously approached the brunette girl, who looked like she wanted to smack someone so hard that they would need a skin-replacement surgery and then maybe change identities while at it.

"Errr… Akane, who is this… Samurai Shakeaspeare?" The youngest Tendo couldn't hold the laugh when listening to that and felt herself relaxing a bit.

"This is Kuno-senpai, he is the mastermind of this army of losers." She gestured to said army, who could just groan in response. "For some reason, he convinced them that they have to defeat me in an 'honorable' battle to date me, as if I would accept something like THAT!" She said with a humph and a stomp to the head of a boy who tried to get a glimpse of the underside of her skirt. The head of the boy caved another hole on the front lawn of the school.

"Ah, my fierce tigress, but how could we demonstrate our worth to thy impressive strength otherwise?" he then noticed Ranma and pointe his wooden sword at her. "And thou, beautiful pigtailed-girl, who art thou? And what would be your business with my fairest Akane Tendo? Are thou a friend of hers? Maybe a long lost relative?"

"Oh, hmmm, my name is…"

"Ah, but is it not the custom to give one's name before asking for another's? Especially when the other is such a beautiful red flower that graces the gardens of the Furinkan High?"

"Uh, I…" Ranma was honestly confused. "Are… are you talking about me?"

"I shall present myself!" He made a dramatic pose, pointing his boken to the skies, who seemed to rumble with a thunderous sound in a plain cloudless day. "I am the captain of the kendo club, the rising star of the kendo world! My peers know me as The Blue Thunder of Furinkan High, my enemies know me as The Handsome Devil Who Attained Heaven, my lovers know me as The Ultimate Sage of Earthly Desires, but the name I was graciously born with is Tatewaki Kuno!" And then a lightning flashed from nothing, although, the fact that it wasn't dark kind of ruined the effect.

Silence followed the ridiculous spectacle.

They could faintly hear someone fair away comment how extra flourished Kuno's presentation was today.

"Psst!" Kuno broke the silence with a stage whisper, motioning for Ranma to pay attention. "Now you present thyself."

"Ah, right!" Ranma then cleared her throat. "Recognized as a fearsome warrior by the Joketsuzoku Tribe, my enemies know me as The Red Devil of Unparalled Destruction! My name is Ranma Saotome, Heir of The Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts!" she struck her best impression of a Gainax Pose and the wind fluttered around her dramatically and strongly, in fact, some of the lightweight fallen boys flew around like leaves under the sudden gust.

"Hmmm, impressive presentation, could use some thunders, though. They always add a very dramatic effect." Criticized Kuno. "And what is this that I heard? Another heir of a martial arts school, just like my fierce tigress Akane Tendo?"

"Ah, yes, our schools are related, in fact, I'm living with her now and…"

"Ranma, stop giving him attention or he'll follow us home…!" Akane angrily whipered to the other girl. The youngest Tendo honestly forgot for a moment that Kuno-senpai wasn't a lost dog or cat. "Sorry, Kuno-senpai, we're late today, so could we skip today's duel or at least leave it for later."

"Hmmm, I shall allow that, my fairest Akane Tendo! Please, go on with your normal activities while I ponder over this new development…" He said, disappearing behind the tree once again with some dramatic leaves flowing with the wind.

"Oh, boy, can't wait for that…" commented Akane with sarcasm and dread, but mostly sarcasm. She grabbed the redhead's hand again. "Come, Ranma, in your papers said that you will be in the same class as me."

Ranma's head snapped from trying to discern where the hell did the kendo captain go to the youngest Tendo. "Wait, really? That's convenient."

"Incredibly."

* * *

After apologizing for the lateness, Akane went to her seat and left Ranma in front of the class.

"Well, class, we have a new student! Saotome-san, could you tell your name and a little about yourself for the class?" motioned the teacher.

"Ah, yes!" Ranma cleared her throat. "My name is Ranma Saotome, I'm a martial artist and I recently came back from a training trip to China with my father. I'm currently living together with Akane Tendo's family, as our fathers are old friends who trained together." She then bowed nervously to the class. "Please, take care of me."

She started to listen to some murmurs about her, but wasn't really able to discern anything that was said. She then looked to Akane, who gave her a reassuring smile. Ranma smiled back in appreciation.

"Okay, Saotome-san, please, take the vague seat between Tendo-san and the window."

She made her way to the pointed seat and sighed in relief as she seated herself. Akane and the redhead exchanged smiles again and then Ranma opened the book for the English class.

She immediately noticed that she isn't very good at English.

Nor Japanese, as the next class proved.

Neither Math nor History.

In fact, she was quite behind everybody. It seems that travelling around the world without any kind of personal education besides martial arts does not help in anything with the common classes of High School.

"Great, just great!" she mumbled to herself. "Now Akane will think that I'm dumb…"

"Did you say something to me, Ranma?" Akane looked over her History book with a questioning look.

"N-Nothing! I just… It's just that I…" The redhead reeeeeeeeeaaally wanted Akane's help with the studies, but it was hard to swallow her own pride when it was as big as the Tokyo Tower and the Cristo Redentor together. "Uhm, just… just forget I said anything!" Then Ranma buried her face on the book.

"Ooooooookay?" Akane was starting to worry about the other girl. Besides her questionable sanity, it appeared that she was developing some sort of fever that left her face really red.

Soon came break time and Ranma was bombarded by questions from her classmates, who seemed to have been building some excited expectations about her. Akane decided to let her classmates deal with their curiosity and went to meet her friends to eat together. She needed to update them in peace before introducing the Saotome girl to them.

"You're a martial artist like Akane?" a guy with spiked black hair asked.

She nodded positively.

"Have you been to the Great Wall of China?" asked a girl with glasses.

"Yes, my father and I actually did a running dispute there!"

"Oooooh! Did you see pandas?" Ranma chuckled with that one.

"Oh, yes, everyday!"

"Have you fought any of them? I heard that pandas are highly violent!" asked a serious girl with black hair.

"Surprisingly, yes, to both."

"Is that why you're wearing that kung fu outfit? Because you're ready to fight anytime?" asked a blond guy.

"Ah, no, I just don't have the uniform yet."

"Are you a big C-cup or a small D-cup?" asked some boy way back in the crowd.

"Excuse me!?"

"What kind of guys do you like?" interrupted a girl with brown short hair.

"I don't have a specific guy that I like, but I SURE DO HATE PERVERTS!" she screamed at the direction of the guy who asked for her bra size.

"Sorry, I was just curious!"

"Geez! It's not polite to ask that to a girl you barely know!" chided a girl with a ponytail. "Besides, you could just pay Nabiki to tell you that, she probably already knows anyway."

Ranma's head snapped with an audible whipping sound thanks to her pigtail. "Wait, what did you say about Akane's sister?"

"Oh, you didn't know? Nabiki is the biggest mercenary at Furinkan High, she deals with bets and selling information for profit." Said the serious girl with black hair.

"Yeah, you can even buy special photos of her sister!" exclaimed the pervert boy, who promptly covered his big mouth.

"Wait, what the fuck!?" Ranma suddenly got up from her seat. She looked for Akane, but she was nowhere to be seen. She turned to her classmates with an angry expression. "Does she knows that?"

"I… think so? I mean, the photos aren't really compromising or anything, just high quality depictions of her training and breaking cement blocks with her bare fists…" said the blond boy wistfully.

"I... what the… Ugh, I need to find Akane. Or her sister!" she tried to get out of class.

Keyword is 'tried'. There was somebody blocking her path.

"Is it true, my pigtailed goddess?" asked Kuno, completely blocking the exit of the classroom.

"What…? What are you talking about?" Ranma's classmates approached carefully, curious about what was going on.

"Is it true that thou and Akane Tendo are engaged in the most unusual of circumstances!?" he exclaimed for everybody in the class. And the neighboring classes. And the people currently on the corridor. The entire floor had heard that, really.

"WAIT, YOU'RE ENGAGED TO AKANE!?" the blond screamed.

"YOU'RE MARRYING ANOTHER GIRL!?" the black haired girl dropped her serious face.

"HOLY SHIT, THAT'S FREAKING EROTIC!" said the pervert.

"Oh, the forbidden love of two girls fighting against the societal taboos! SO ROMANTIC!" swooned the girl with glasses.

"Wait, wait, wait! You guys are getting the wrong idea! Me and Akane… we don't, we aren't…! We are not…!"

"You don't need to pretend otherwise, Saotome-san!" exclaimed the girl with glasses. "Your face says everything we need to know!"

Ranma cursed Jesus, Buddha, Amaterasu and all the other gods she knew about for giving her an easily flustered face. She turned to Kuno angrily.

"Look at what you did! Who the hell told you that bullshit!?"

"It was the most useful witch that I have knowledge of, Akane Tendo's sister herself, Nabiki Tendo!" announced the kendo captain with a booming voice. Geez, did he have to say everything in a dramatic way!?

"Good to know, now me and Akane can tag team her." The redhead immediately slapped her mouth when she finished that.

"OH, SHIT, YOU'RE GONNA SEDUCE HER SISTER TOO!?" the pervert was suffering severe blood loss through the nose.

"I MEANT PUNISHING! WITH PAIN!" screamed Ranma at the guy.

"OH, MAN! YOU'RE INTO BDSM!?" The blond guy was equally anemic now.

"Oh, I can already imagine it!" the girl with glasses was really excited now. She pretended to be a downed girl, dramatically kneeled in front of an unseen person. "'Oh, Mistress Saotome, please forgive this humble slave for saying too much!'" she then assumed the role of the 'Mistress', stepping on the invisible sex slave. "'No, my beautiful caged bird! You shall be punished with the pleasures of the flesh! And we're starting with the part of your body that doomed yourself!'" She then made some gross noises with her mouth that Ranma would have a hard time forgetting about later.

"I'M SURROUNDED BY PERVERTS!" Ranma then pushed Kuno-senpai to the side and tried to go after Akane before the gossip was too much spread over the school. She failed again to do so when the kendo captain grabbed her wrist. She turned to him, very annoyed with the entire ordeal. "What!? Let me go, you bastard! Aren't you satisfied with what you done!? I need to find Akane or her soon-to-be-dead sister!"

"Alas, my pigtailed goddess, I need to know one thing before I let you go to your quest." He said seriously.

"What's it!?"

"If I defeat you in battle, doth that means that I can date both you and my fierce tigress Akane Tendo?"

* * *

Akane was at the roof, eating lunch with her friends, Sayuri and Yuka, chatting about the new people sharing her house.

"…and then she starts go on and on about how the Pink Panther and Cool Cat aren't real, I was relieved when she stopped that when I dropped her in the bathtub." She munched a bit. "I mean, what's even Cool Cat? Is it some Chinese knockoff of the Pink Panther?"

"I have no idea." Said Yuka.

"Sounds like an unintentionally bad joke, if you ask me." Completed Sayuri.

Just then, they were interrupted when the roof near them EXPLODED and Tatewaki Kuno went flying so high that he turned into a star in the sky.

"What. The. Fuck." Said each friend, a word each.

Akane slowly approached the hole in the roof, taking care to not fall in. Which would be bad, as it seemed to go down at least two floors of the school.

She noticed a familiar redhead on the bottom of the floor, panting angrily. "Ranma! What the hell was that!?"

Ranma expression softened a bit for a moment, and then she remembered why she was angry. "Akane, do you mind if I kill your sister?"

 _Sigh._ "What did Nabiki do?"

Ranma looked flustered with the question.

"I would rather not say it here, you know, while shouting to a hole!"

"Then yes, I do mind, I can't let you kill my sister without even knowing why."

"Awwwwn, not even just a little?"

"How do you kill someone just a little?"

"Have you ever heard of 'Le petite mort'? It's some French thing to do just that! I don't know what exactly it entails, but sounds promising!"

"I still don't approve of it until you come here and explain."

This conversation was surreal, but Akane at least felt some relief on the normality of her middle sister screwing with others.

"What are you waiting for? Just come up here now!"

"Augh, fine!" the redhead exclaimed frustrated.

She then proceeded to do a series of jumps through the holes on each floor until she reached the roof and landed in front of Akane. Her friends clapped their hands in awe.

"Show off." The bluenette snorted. "We do have stairs, y'know?

"I…! Uh, in my defense, this is way quicker than stairs!" she walked with Akane and joined her friends. The youngest Tendo presented them.

"Sayuri, Yuka, this is the girl who moved in with me, Ranma Saotome."

"Hello, there!" said Ranma bowing to them.

"No need to be that formal, girl! My name is Yuka."

"I'm Sayuri. Say, was it you who sent Kuno-senpai on a mission to space?"

"Ah, yes, he did something terrible just now!" Ranma started to get angry again, a vein popping on her forehead.

"Calm down, Ranma!" Akane put a hand on her shoulder and pressed it a bit, that did calm the redhead a bit. "What did Kuno-senpai do? And what that has to do with Nabiki?"

"She… She…! She told Kuno about how we were supposed to marry before you father discovered that I'm girl, but the jackass misunderstood it and now everybody thinks that we're having a lesbian affair!"

The silence was so thick that you could use it as building blocks to an invisible castle.

"SHE DID WHAT!?" Akane would have destroyed that castle now.

* * *

Nabiki was having a great day of profit!

Thanks to Ranma's arrival at the school gates, she managed to profit from the info she sold on the redhead. As always, Kuno-baby was a very good source of income and the flustered face he made when she told him that Ranma was supposed to marry Akane (carefully leaving out that it wasn't the case anymore) was something that no money in the world could buy, something she would cherish with her heart until she dies.

"SHE DID WHAT!?" was heard through the entire school. To Nabiki, it was like an ominous message that her last day on Earth was coming sooner than she wanted.

She got up and announced to the class:

"If anybody needs my services, please, wait for next Monday as I have an urgent trip to Brazil for a research on the migratory behavior of whales on Fernando de Noronha archipelago. Leave any message with my usual assistants."

She quickly made her escape, but was thwarted by the mob of students trying to ask her if it was true that Ranma and Akane are an item. She tried to respond their questions before unstoppable wall of doom that was her sister found her.

"I'll not confirm nor deny that information, but it's true that they were engaged at some point!"

"I don't know if Ranma has dominatrix gear, but I can check that for you if you pay the right price!"

"Wait, what was that about Ranma and Akane tag teaming me!?"

It was then that she felt two different hands grab each of her shoulders.

"Nabikiiiiiiii… You have some explanation to do…" hissed her _beloved_ young sister.

"Don't forget to ask about the photos…" said her _adorably cute_ houseguest.

She turned to them, with the best smile she could force on her face. She patted them on the shoulders on a failing attempt to calm them.

"Akane! Ranma! Hahahah, so good to see you, I hope you don't believe on these ridiculous rumors that LOOK OUT, PEOPLE! RANMA AND AKANE ARE HERE, ASK THEM WHATEVER YOU WANT!" she then pushed both girls to the crowd and ran away as fast as she could. She almost fell on the hole Ranma made with Kuno's head, but managed to jump over it and tried to reach the stairs.

Yes, just a bit more and she'll successfully complete her daring escape to some obscure place until her sister calmed down!

Obviously, Fate had other plans when Kuno fell through the same hole he had gone through.

And crash-landed directly over her.

 _"Huh, so that's how you feel when you're knocked out cold."_ Was the surprisingly long last thought Nabiki had before everything went black.


	4. Chapter 3 - Rampage at Furinkan High

**Author's Foreword:**

Thanks for your reviews! I really appreciate the comments on this one =)

I'm usually not very confident on my brand of humor, but it's good to see that some people appreciate it!

Usually, when I write things, I just go with the flow then revise it a few times to add things that I think would make the story better or cut stuff that don't contribute with the narrative. It's pretty free form on that regard, although I try to keep the general characterization I'm going for in mind.

Anyway, I hope you like this next chapter because, _hooo boy,_ I had fun on this one!

21/11/2018 – Corrected some errors and changed some wording around, stuff like changing from "brunette" to "bluenette" whenever I refer to Akane.

xxx

* * *

 **Chapter 3 – Rampage at Furinkan High**

Everybody on the Tendo household agreed that letting Nabiki pay for her own broken bones being fixed by the family doctor was a good punishment. From what Ranma could gather, no amount of physical pain would be as painful as losing her hard earned money, even if it was through dubious means.

So, with Nabiki left at home until her ribs didn't sport a spider web pattern, Akane supposed that she would at least have some peace of mind when it came to the photos her sister was selling to the perverts at school seemed to be so much into.

The youngest Tendo couldn't really understand boys sometimes, didn't they like more delicate girls like her elder sister Kasumi? What was the appeal of her breaking concrete with her bare hands? She could see other people thinking that it was quite impressive, but not in a feminine way.

She quickly decided that it must be the natural weirdness of her school. She didn't want the attention of that bunch of weirdos, anyway.

Who in their right mind genuinely thinks that defeat means romance? A culture like that would probably be made of crazy people living in the middle of some distant mountains.

She was glad that it was unlikely that she would ever see someone from a place like that.

Of course, she forgot that she should not tempt Fate when she had what could possibly be described as a "crazy life".

But that's something for another day, Fate was out eating lunch at that moment while fucking with other people's lives, so they just made a note to remember to do that on a later date and used a ying-yang magnet to attach it to their fridge.

For now, Fate had left something else prepared for Akane and Ranma inside it's Mystical Fridge of Destiny.

* * *

Another day, another run to school with enormous effort to not be attacked by water hazards and suspicious old ladies cleaning the street space in front of their houses.

"Say, for how long have you been doing this show?" asked Ranma as they approached the school. Akane sighed in response.

"Since the first week at school, Kuno-senpai put on his head that if he could defeat me in battle, then he was worth of dating me, _then_ he convinced everybody of the same!" she huffed. "I don't even understand him, why make everybody fight me if he is the one who wants to date me?"

"Ah, maybe he enjoys the challenge, or likes to be punched, or most likely wants to leave you tired enough so he could defeat you easily." Ranma counted in her fingers while Akane got creeped out with each possibility. She could understand the first one, being a martial artist herself, but the other two? Urgh, she shuddered just at the thought of such a pervert getting off by being punched and got angry at the possibility that Kuno was indeed such a lowly coward to resort to such dishonorable tactic. Seeing his friend (crush, really) making a distressed face, the redhead tried to defuse it at least a little bit. "Or, you know, he has brain damage that greatly impacts his common sense."

"Well, giving his day-to-day personality, that's possible." Then the school came into view and Akane started her 'I Hate Boys' speech.

While Ranma didn't find hating an entire half of the human race very healthy, she couldn't help but feel like her chances were looking good. However, the fact that she got really angry with the school rumor that they're a lesbian couple might be a counterpoint to that.

Then, the redhead was snapped out of her thoughts by the scream of the Hentai Horde, as Akane nicknamed then in a very _lovely_ way.

"Akane Tendo, Ranma Saotome! We challenge you for the rights of dating both of you! Prepare yourselves!"

Ranma immediately stopped on her tracks.

"Wait, this can't be happening." She said sweating buckets. "Oh, god, it's happening, isn't it?"

"GODDAMMIT, KUNO-SENPAI!" Screamed Akane. There's no way that it wasn't his idea to extend her 'challenge' to the redhead. "WHEN I FIND YOU, I'LL CRUSH YOUR FAMILY JEWELS INTO A PASTE AND MAKE YOU EAT THEM LIKE BUTTER ON A BREAD SLICE!"

Kuno, on his hiding place, was a bit confused. Was she planning to invade his family's vault to destroy their jewelry?

"Date me, Akan-OARGH!" The first boy to reach the youngest Tendo got punched so hard that he woke up on his _past life._ He was disturbed to discover that he was once a Victorian-era girl who fought for equal rights between men and women. The irony was completely lost on him.

As the front army attacked Akane, some of them snuck up behind the Saotome girl, who was still paralyzed with shock from the surreal experience she was having right now. However, when they moved to attack her, she instinctively back-kicked the closer guy with such a force that the impact cleaned his skin pores and made him vomit a ball of accumulated bubble gum that he accidentally ate over the years. All in all, it probably made him healthier if you discount the internal injuries.

His buddies felt a bit afraid, they didn't know the girl was as strong as Akane!

They didn't have time to reconsider their life choices, as Ranma immediately jumped to action and drop-kicked the street, making the entire group of attackers fall on a crater of gross sewage.

"Now you smell like the pigs you are!" she screamed, glad that miraculously no water pipe was hit by her attack nor did she fall in the smelly pit she created. She rejoined Akane, who was also done with her side of the mob. "Geez, no wonder you hate boys, these guys are the worst!"

"Told ya." She said while stomping a guy who dared to make a move to get up. She then turned to the redhead with a smile, "Nice kick back there, by the way."

Ranma blushed, mumbling some thanks for the compliment.

"Truly, a boorish lot. Not even one of them can challenge the two beautiful goddesses of war like you." Kuno coming out of his tree, brandished his bokken dramatically. "Only me, The Heavenly Knight of Love, Tatewaki Kuno, can defeat you!"

There was a beat marking the one second of silence that followed.

"I'll kick him in the balls and you crush his skull, sounds fair?" asked Akane.

"Totally." Agreed Ranma.

* * *

After Kuno was sent to the hospital and the Hentai Horde was sent to the psych ward for the traumatizing display of violence upon their leader, things seemed to calm down a bit for the redhead and the bluenette. Sure, they were still annoyed that some people still thought that they're a couple (although for opposite reasons), but all in all, it was pretty peaceful for the rest of the day.

After saying goodbye to Akane's friends, they both went to pick their stuff from their lockers. Both girls found letters on their lockers.

"What are these? Challenge letters?" asked the redhead.

"You… never have seen one of these before?" the Tendo girl asked while shaking one particularly flowery letter envelope full of hearts.

"Should I have? I mean, I didn't interact with other girls my age that much and I barely went to school before…" she immediately hit her own mouth saying that. Oh, shit, now Akane would be sure that she is dumb! "N-not that I'm dumb or a-a-a-anything like that!" _great save, dumbass._

"Wait, what are you…?"

"NOPE! Only because I'm a little-maybe-actually-a-lot behind others on the subjects doesn't means that I'm dumb, no sir!" _oh, god stop talking!_

"Are… are you saying you never went to school before!?" asked Akane half worried for the girl and half angry at her father.

"NO! I went to school!" Akane felt some relief. "For like a month every time we settled for some time on a place whenever we weren't traveling." The redhead was really hating her sudden motor mouth. "Mostly because Pops didn't want to go to jail before we were run out for some petty crime he committed." _Stop dammit, you're making it worse! Akane is all angry now!_

"I can't believe it!" screamed the bluenette in frustration. "Not only are you emotionally stunted, you're also academically stunted!"

"I-I-I'm not dumb!" Ranma screamed frustrated and annoyed. _Oh, that sounded more angry than she intended, great way to reassure her and yourself, Saotome!_

"I'm not saying that you are!" Akane rebutted. "I just can't believe your father!"

A bit in relief entered the redhead for not being the target of her anger. "Well, Pops always said that a true martial artist don't need a formal education, that would only get in the way of the Art."

"Bullshit!"

"I… kinda agree with him on this one, to be honest." Said Ranma sheepishly at the look of disbelief of her friend. "I mean, what use is for me to know about Math as a Martial Artist anyway? It's just so boring and-"

She stopped when Akane suddenly grabbed her cheeks and jolted the redhead face to hers so they could look eye to eye. Ranma fought hard to concentrate on what she was saying at the same she tried to suppress a blush.

"Ranma, listen!" She took a breath before continuing. "Don't buy his crap about school, you need at least a college education to run a Dojo, did you know that?"

"Wait, what? Really!? Pops never told me that!" She said indignantly.

"I thought we had already established that your Father doesn't tell a lot of things to you!" she huffed angrily. "It's kinda weird he didn't, giving that he wanted us to join the schools and run the Dojo."

"Maybe he didn't know, Pops isn't very good at thinking about consequences for whatever he does…" Ranma said looking gloomy.

"This whole curse shenanigan makes it very obvious." Akane deadpanned.

"Ergh, whatever! What I do with these?" she said grabbing a bunch of letters with hearts.

"That's… a lot of letters, actually. Way more than mine…" Nope, the bluenette wasn't jealous. Not at all.

"Hmmm, maybe it's the hair color? A friend of mine used to say it was pretty."

"Or maybe it's because of your big boobs." The Tendo mocked.

The redhead giggled. "You said it, not me!"

"HEY!"

"Anyway, who cares about who had more letters? They're all from the boys of this school and none of them are worth a damn!" she completed by slamming her locker with force. _Yeah, that's a good excuse for now, isn't?_

"Can't disagree with that, Ranma-chan. Let's just toss them in the trash and be done with it!"

After throwing the letters on the appropriated recycling bin, they exited the building towards the gates of the school grounds. The bluenette suddenly remembered something.

"You know, I kind of forgot that we were going to fight yesterday." Akane commented as they exited their class. The redhead shrugged.

"Well, kinda hard to, y'know? What's up with your sister's broken ribs and all."

"Yeah, about that," Akane holded her chin with a thinking pose, "we should probably take care of ourselves, she is probably plotting vengeance right now."

"Pffft, I can handle anything she throws at me!" Ranma boasted.

Akane shook her head. "Oh, yeah, because she totally didn't see your breakdown on the first day we met because of a phobia that she totally doesn't know that you have."

The redhead started to tremble in the same place. If she vibrated more, maybe she could turn herself intangible for a moment. "Y-y-y-y-y-y-you don't think she w-w-w-would, d-d-do you?"

Akane avoided looking at the girl's blue eyes.

"She… was pretty pissed off, y'know? She never really broke a bone, so breaking five ribs at the same time is kind of a rough first time..."

The redhead started to mutter to herself her madness chanting once again, although this time she managed to walk with Akane around the school towards the exit, shaking all the way there. The youngest Tendo decided that what she wanted to do now was to get very quick at home and put her friend into the bath before her breakdown got worse.

Obviously, their karma for comedic hijinks wasn't all used up today.

As they approached the gate, they heard someone on the other side of the wall say. "Could any of you tell me where Furinkan High is?"

"Uh, you're looking at it, buddy." Said another voice.

"GREAT! Can you tell me where I can find Ranma Saotome?"

"What do you want with Ranma?" Akane then came through the gate together with the trembling redhead. She looked at the unfamiliar boy with a yellow bandana with black squares pattern and branding an umbrella.

"Oh, I just want to… SAOTOME!" he suddenly noticed the redhead as he turned around to respond. "PREPARE TO DIE!"

Ranma snapped out of her funk with his scream and barely dodged his umbrella. "WHAT THE HELL!?" she put some distance between them with a back flip. "Who the hell are you!?"

"You don't remember the face of the person that you ruined?!" He thrusted his umbrella again and Ranma dodged it by jumping over the wall of the school grounds. "BECAUSE OF YOU, I'VE SEEN HELL!"

"Seriously, who the hell are you!? I mean, you're familiar, but I can't tell from where do I know you!" She said while doing her best to avoid the following umbrella strikes that the boy lashed as he followed the redhead through the school grounds.

She suddenly noticed that he had disappeared from her sight. "Wait, where is he!?"

"STAY STILL AND MAYBE I'LL TELL YOU!" she looked at the sky and barely dodged an overhead strike coming from the skies. The ground beneath the bandana boy exploded like microwaved ostrich eggs, making a big mess that dirtied many of the still exiting students. Everybody looked amazed at the display of power and stupidly decided to stay to watch the fight.

"Hey, stop that!" the bandana boy turned to see who said that and barely dodged Akane's flying kick. She kicked and punched a bit more, but the boy blocked each strike until he grabbed one of feet.

"My business isn't with you, it's Ranma Saotome that I want to kill!" he then proceeded to spin the Tendo girl like she was an olympic hammer and launched her into the school building, where she landed squarely into her classroom. Thankfully, the window was open, but the chairs were not good cushions either.

"AKANE!" screamed Ranma. She then turned to her attacker. "I still don't know who you are, buddy, but I don't like when people attack my friends!"

"YEAH, SHOW THEM, SAOTOME!" screamed one of her classmates. "MAKE THAT GUY REGRET EVER MESSING WITH YOUR GIRLFRIEND!"

"Oh, for the love of… Akane isn't my girlfriend, JUST MY FRIEND!" She screamed at the guy, "Dammit, just stop with that gossip alre-WOAH!" she dodged another umbrella thrust.

"DON'T GET DISTRACTED OR YOU'LL DIE, SAOTOME!" screamed the other boy, attacking her with a combo of umbrella thrusts and kicks. "For the hell you made me go through, I will destroy your happiness!"

"Happiness? You think I'm happy!?" she asked in disbelief. That guy sure didn't know her. Though, she could say that her last few days where quite… not bad as bad as they had been in the past.

"Obviously you're happy! Who the hell wouldn't be happy to have such a cute girlfriend!? Everyone here agrees, right!?" he screamed at the crowd watching them.

"Yeah!" screamed the members of the Hentai Horde that weren't hospitalized or didn't went home to wash themselves of filth. "Akane and Ranma are the goddesses of Furinkan High!"

"Oh, shut up!" screamed one of the girls. "They aren't the only girls on the school, ok!?"

"Wait, girls?" the bandana boy seemed confused. "Why they think you're girl, Saotome?"

A vein popped on her forehead.

"BECAUSE I AM A GIRL, YOU JACKASS!" she screamed kicking the boy in the face. He completed his flight with a perfect triple backflip landing. He quickly assumed a fighting stance.

"What!? You're not a girl! You went to the same all-boys school as me!" he proceeded to try to punch her in the face as if he was a Jojo's protagonist, but Ranma quickly dodged every one of them.

"Wait, you mean you're-!" but Ranma couldn't complete her question as Akane choose that moment to reenter the fight with another kick.

"INAZUMA KICK!" this time she hit the boy square on his right temple, making him kick the ground a few times like a pebble on the water. He stopped as he went through the fence that separated the front school grounds from the sports area of Furinkan High.

As she cleaned herself, Akane turned to her redhead friend. "Did you really go to an all-boys school?" Ranma shrugged.

"Pops reeeeeeeaaaaally wanted a boy and thought that being there would make me learn how to be one." She looked at where the boy landed and walked to that direction. "C'mon, I remember him now, let's pray that his head has cooled off now."

Akane quickly joined her, with the crowd hoping for more kung fu fighting following them.

"So, who is that guy?" the dark-haired girl asked. "He seemed to have a pretty big grudge with you."

"His name is Ryoga Hibiki and that "killing me" business is actually new, we were just rivals back them." She located the boy on a crater near a water fountain. "Kinda friends, really, I used to help him get home because he has an incredibly bad sense of direction." She approached the crater and started to poke the boy with her feet. "Yep, he is out. Honestly, I'm glad that he didn't get up yet, he would probably have wandered somewhere trying to find me."

"That still doesn't explain why he wants to kill you." Akane said.

"Eh, I remember that at school, all the boys used to fight for the last bread. I guess Ryoga was the one who always got it until I showed up with my superior acrobatic skills" she smirked to the Tendo girl.

"Pff, I'm sure this isn't about bread." Said the bluenette dryly.

"YOU'RE RIGHT!" screamed Ryoga suddenly getting up with a backflip. "My vengeance isn't about bread! But I guess that I understand it now," he said quizzically. He then pointed his finger at the redhead. "You too are cursed by Jusenkyo, aren't you, Ranma!?" Both girls were surprised.

"How did you know!?" the Saotome girl asked.

"And you're such a pervert! Not only you disguise yourself as a girl with the Spring of The Drowned Girl, but you also tricked this poor lesbian girl into dating you!"

"I WAS BORN A GIRL, YOU IDIOT!" Ranma responded.

"I'M NOT A LESBIAN, YOU JACKASS!" Akane screamed angrily. "I'M NEVER GOING TO DATE ANOTHER GIRL, I'M NOT A PERVERT!"

...

Suddenly, the youngest Tendo sister heard a sound like someone breaking a very expensive vase that held special sentimental value to someone's dead wife, followed by a sound that could either be someone crushing their knees with impossible force on the ground or crushed hopes and dreams of young teenage love.

Those are very similar sounds.

"Oh." Said Ranma blankly, knees on the ground.

"Ranma!" the Tendo girl approached her friend, trying to shake her shoulders to snap her from whatever she was suffering now. Oblivious, she asked "What's wrong!?"

The small redhead seemed to retreat to herself, sobbing desperately as the tears that she was fighting with started to build up on her eyes.

"I… I… I'M STUPID, THAT'S WHAT'S WRONG!" Ranma pushed Akane from her and turned to Ryoga, who was surprised to see the angry tears of despair running on the redhead's cheeks. "AND YOU…! YOU JUST CRUSHED MY DREAMS, YOU MOTHERFUCKER!"

She then tried to punch Ryoga on the face, who barely dodged it.

Instead, she hit the water fountain.

"NO!" was all Akane could say as the water explosion made everybody on the vicinity wet.

Everybody was confused for a moment, the water explosion made everyone avert their eyes to the incredibly entertaining soup opera that was happening in front of their eyes. They felt a chill go down their spine as a terrifying feline sound could be heard through the entire ward of Nerima.

Akane looked at where Ranma was and could only see a red cat with blue eyes that had a terrifying shine to them. She couldn't determine if it was the water drenching her clothes or if she was sweating a fountain of fear. She made a very small movement to step back, but quickly decided that was a bad move.

The cat hissed and made a movement with its pawn, opening gashes on the ground besides Akane. She immediately decided that any movement would probably be bad for her health.

"Oh, god… RUN, YOU FOOLS, RUN!" screamed one boy behind her.

"Wait, don't…!" she tried to warn them, but they were already turning around. The red cat took that as provocation and immediately jumped after them.

"MEOWWWWWW!" screamed the cat as it swiped the ground in front of the crowd, opening three claw-like holes that blocked their path.

"AAAAAH! FROM WHICH PIT OF HELL DID THIS CAT COME FROM!?" Screamed one of the girls.

"MEEEEEEOWWWWW…" yowled the small demon. The cat prepared to claw the students, this time with extreme prejudice, when suddenly a blond girl came from nowhere and kicked the cat back to the sports area, this time near the pool.

"I'll distract it, RUN NOW!" screamed the girl. They didn't think twice and excited the school grounds with speed rivaling that of a hungry cheetah.

Akane was still in shock with everything, but suddenly snapped when she heard the blond girl say: "Dammit, Ranma! That's your curse!? Now I really have to kill you!"

The youngest Tendo sister quickly went into action and tried to stop the other girl. "NO! It's not her fault! She is traumatized!"

"I know it! I know about the Neko-ken, I was her only friend at that all-boys school!" screamed the blond, annoyed that she was stopped by the other girl.

"Wait, wha-" she then noticed what she was wearing. "Ryoga!? YOU fell into the Spring of The Drowned Girl!?" Ryoga swated Akane's hand hand from her shoulder.

"That isn't important now! I need to stop Ranma before he- I mean, _she_ kills someone!"

"WHAT!?"

"Just get out of the way!" Ryoga then jumped after where Ranma had landed.

Akane followed the blond girl, she couldn't let her kill her friend!

* * *

As for Ranma, her cat mind was filled with thoughts of sorrow that her animalistic instincts couldn't quite process. She ran away from Furinkan, searching for some place where she could just lie down, nap and not be kicked by crazy blond humans.

Napping under the sun would calm the cat.

As long as nobody disturbed her.

She wandered through the streets of Nerima, searching for a good place to nap. She hissed at other cats that tried to approach her when she was walking over the fence. She passed besides a near-blind old lady that almost splashed her with water. She quickly turned her water can into chunky pieces of metal.

Deciding that the old lady wasn't a danger anymore, she returned to her search until she found a building with a sunny spot on one of the open windows. She entered through it and discovered a particularly comfortable chair to sleep in.

Yes, that would do.

* * *

"Thank you, Dr. Tofu! My back was really killing me!"

An old lady with a cow pattern kimono exited her chiropractor's room. She was followed by a mature, but relatively young, doctor. He smiled with gentleness.

"It's no problem, Mrs. Arakawa, I'm here for this."

"Oh, you're such a gentleman, doctor! Be sure to pick a girl who appreciate it, ok?" the old lady chuckled. She then noticed a small red bundle comfortably sleeping on a chair near the window of the reception room. "Oh, Dr. Tofu, I didn't know you had a cat!"

"And I don't, I must have forgotten to close the window." The doctor approached the cat with a most uncommon colored fur. "Interesting, not a lot of mammals have this particular shade of red, much less common domestic cats…"

"Maybe it's a rare breed?" prompted the old lady.

"If it is, it's probably expensive and owned by someone." He rested his chin on a finger. "I think I'll keep it until the owner shows up."

"It does not have a collar, though. Maybe it escaped the pet shop?"

"Well, whatever the case, I'm sure someone will appear to collect it. If not, I guess I now own a cat!" both the doctor and his patient chuckled.


	5. Chapter 4 - Cats: Nature's Tsundere

**Author's Foreword:**

I made Ryoga's girl form blonde on the previous chapter because of a rather interesting fanfiction called " **The Other Side of The Coin** " by Baron Zed, which has a pretty interesting twist in that Ranma's girl form is unable to use martial arts because she convert Ki into Magic, which he doesn't knows how to use. It has a bit of a crossover with Sailor Moon later on and I honestly found it interesting that they're seasoned mentor figures instead of being the same age as the cast from Ranma 1/2.

I just wish the author published new chapters, it is a pretty interesting premise.

Oh, well.

Anyway, thanks for all the comments, I appreciate any critics and compliments sent to anything I do =)

Let's start this show again.

21/11/2018 – Changed some wording and corrected a few erros.

xxx

* * *

 **Chapter 4 – Cats: Nature's Tsundere**

"Nyaaaaaah…"

"You're a pretty good kitty, huh? Enjoying yourself, aren't you?"

Dr. Tofu was enjoying the company of the red feline that invaded his clinic. He never had a pet, but if he had to choose, he always thought he would go for a cat. This experience was reinforcing it, as he was quite enjoying giving a small massage to the feline, who seemed to share his enjoyment even more so.

"Hmmm, I wonder when your owner will show up…" In truth, he was kind of praying that no one would show up so he could keep it. He was even thinking about names!

"Say, would you like to be called Akako?"

He received an unamused glare in response.

"Not good, huh? Well, we can brainstorm something until someone shows up or I decide to keep you officially." He continued to massage the cat, who purred in pleasure. His thoughts drifted to his crush, a gentle girl from the Tendo Household called Kasumi.

He wondered if she liked cats.

"Say, Redwall…"

"Nyooow…" growled the cat in annoyance.

"That as bad too? Well, as I was saying, do you think I should visit Kasumi using you as a pretense?" he scratched the cat's head behind its ears. "She probably can tell me if she knows if anyone around here owns such a cute cat as you."

"Mew…"

"Yeah, in principle, it's probably a good idea, but…" Dr. Tofu sighed. "…I start to act like a doofus whenever I'm near Kasumi, I just need to listen her say 'hello, Dr. Tofu" with that beautiful gentle smile of hers and I start to talk with inanimate objects and break my patients spines…"

"NYOW!"

"Ah, don't worry, Dr. Bloodstain, nothing will happen to you!"

The cat hissed at the new name.

"Well, we could shorten that to Doc Bloodie! It's cute, right?"

The cat made a new disapproving sound.

"You're picky about names, aren't you?" he sighed. "It was just a hypothesis anyway, it's not like I actually have the courage to go after her…"

The cat made an annoyed growling sound.

"I know, I know, I should man up and just talk to her, but it's so hard…" the red cat patted Dr. Tofu's lips annoyingly to make him shut up.

She just wanted pats, not discuss some handsome middle-aged doctor's love problems!

* * *

When Akane jumped over a wall to follow Ryoga, the first thing she noticed was that she as nowhere to be seen on the street behind the west wall of the school grounds. She briefly wondered if she got lost, her redhead friend did say that the boy-turned-girl had a pretty bad sense of direction.

Talking about her, the youngest Tendo sister thought about her friend's newest breakdown. She didn't actually understand what happened, but she knew she should find her before she completely forgot that she wasn't an actual cat. Who knows what would happen to her? Maybe she could get herself captured by someone and taken as a pet. That would be bad.

 _Worse_ than bad.

She would feel responsible if that happened to her friend.

She needed to find her as fast as she could before Ranma was lost forever both to her family and herself.

But after some time, her search seemed fruitless.

She looked everywhere near the school, but couldn't find Ranma anywhere. She was getting desperate, but at least she didn't find signals of further destruction. Which was also a bad thing because that left her without leads to follow.

Maybe she found her way to the dojo? On her first day in Nerima, she did go to the dojo instead of anywhere else that could be dry, maybe she instinctually knew that it was a temple of martial arts and felt attracted to it?

It was a stretch, but Akane felt that she could at least take a look at the places on her way home. She turned back to the school and went to collect her's and Ranma's bag that were forgotten in front of Furinkan High.

On the way to the Tendo Dojo, she looked at every wall, street corner, back alley and trash bin around. She did find some cats, but none of them had the same coloring as her friend's fur or the pigtail that she had even as an animal.

What if… What if she decided to live as a street cat somewhere away from Nerima? Oh god, what if she found a cat in heat!? Could she get pregnant and give birth to kitties!?

"Noooooo, nope, nonononono!" Her mind is wandering with her nervousness. Besides, it's the _females_ that get in heat, not the males…

"Could… could Ranma get in heat…?" she asked to the wind.

That was a weird thought for later, if it ever comes up at all.

She sure hoped that it never did.

* * *

On the Tendo Household, nobody knew what happened at Furinkan High, nor where Ranma currently was. In fact, only Kasumi and Nabiki where in the residence at the moment. Genma and the Tendo patriarch went out to do god knows what. The elder sister just hoped that they didn't come back wasted and in time for dinner.

As Kasumi prepared dinner for everyone, with a separated plate with easy-to-munch food for her sister Nabiki, she wondered where her youngest sister and her redheaded friend where.

She quite liked the girl and felt pity for her trauma with cats. Maybe she could help her in some way? Dr. Tofu sure would have some books on how to take care of people with post-traumatic disorders.

As if on call, she heard a knock on the front door and went to attend it. For a moment, she could swear that Dr. Tofu had a determined expression on his face, but that was quickly subdued by his usual carefree goofy grin that she had always seen on his face.

"Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyy, Kasumi!"

"Oh, Dr. Tofu! Cheerful as always, I see." She chuckled and to the doctor, that light laugh was like the sound of an angel. "What brings you to my house, may I ask?"

"See, today I found this cuuuuute kitty here! I call her Ruby-chan!" he shoved the red cat in front of her face. To Kasumi, it was vaguely familiar, but she couldn't quite put a finger on why. "So, I thought 'huh, does Kasumi likes cats?' and brought her here!"

"Oh, I actually do love cats!" she said with a smile. Then she frowned when she remembered about her petit redheaded guest. "But unfortunately, I can't have one. One of our guests is terribly afraid of cats!"

"Oh, what a shame! What a shame! Isn't that a shame, Rose-chan?" he said while spinning around with the cat still on his arms. The cat didn't seem to be enjoying the ride as much as the doctor.

"Indeed… But I guess it's not really a problem to invite both of you in right now, our guests aren't at home in the moment." She said with a gentle smile.

"Greeeeeat, Kasumi! Did you know that Little Red-chan here is a lucky cat?" he said as he did a pretty great impression of a ballet dancer with the red feline as a partner, both doing pirouettes as they entered the house. The cat loudly voiced it's complaints.

"Oh, really?" she said amused.

"Yes! This cat is great at giving people pep talks! I really appreciated the chat we had back at my clinic!" He said he did a Cossack dance as he entered the living room.

"Oh, my! It's a talking cat?" she said with a bit of humor.

"Oh, no, Kasumi, don't be silly!" she giggled at the irony of what the oblivious doctor said. "Bloody-Chan is just a great listener! I get why a lot of old ladies have more than one cat now!" He said as he jumped in the same place as if he was over a springboard preparing himself to dive.

"I guess lonely old ladies would appreciate a friendly ear indeed." Kasumi agreed with a smile. Internally, she hoped that she _never_ gets to a point in her life where she could consider owning more than one cat just to have a semblance of company.

As she watched the doctor somehow cartwheel around the table while holding a cat protectively, she suddenly heard someone barging through the door. Akane entered the living room crying desperately and hugged her elder sister tightly. She screamed while burying her face on Kasumi's chest, who was very worried about her.

"RANMA TURNED INTO A CAT AND FREAKED OUT AND THEN RAN AWAY WHEN HER FRIEND WHO TURNS INTO A GIRL KICKED HER AND NOW I CAN'T FIND HER ANYWHERE I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO AND IT'S ALL MY FAULT AND NOW I CAN'T…" she then noticed Dr. Tofu doing an inverted lotus pose using his head as the base, while holding a red cat firmly on his hands. She quickly let go of her sister and approached the older man happily "Dr. Tofu! You found Ranma!"

"Whaaaaaaaaa? Y'know Aka-chan, Akane?" he changed positions to one of akin to a Shakespearean actor, with the red cat as Yorick, a thoughtful expression on his face with opaque glasses hiding his eyes. "Hmmm, I guess that makes sense, you both have "Aka" in the name!" The man said while he inspected the cat as if it held the secret of life.

"Hm, what are you talking about, doctor?" Akane was used to Dr. Tofu's silliness around her elder sister, but he was being extra weird now. It was almost like the cat made him stoned or something.

"Ah, it's just that I found this cuuuuuuuuuuuuute cat sleeping inside my clinic and I came here to show it to Kasumi and ask her if she knew the owner, but I guess that you are the owner!" he said while shoving the cat into her arms.

The cat protested loudly to being handled in such a brute way. While the red feline appreciated the massaged he gave to her, she heavily regretted visiting the weird doctor's house. At least the cat was in the arms of the nice-but-not-really girl.

 _She_ didn't spin her around in a crazy human mating ritual.

"I mean, you should be more considerate to your guest that has a phobia of cats, Akane! But I guess you know how to handle it, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight?" The doctor then did a somersault and landed besides Kasumi. "I'm going back to my clinic! Take care of Sangria-chan! Good night, Akane-chan! Good night, Kasumi-chan!" he bowed to them both and exited the house doing a series of backflips.

"Oh, my! The doctor is always so energetic, I really love that about him!" said Kasumi with a small giggle.

Akane and the cat could only stare dumbfounded at the eldest Tendo sister.

Kasumi then turned around to them. "Well, Akane, could you change Ranma back? It's a bit silly that I didn't recognize her when she came with Dr. Tofu, now that I think about it." She then touched her chin with one finger, an expression of thought. "But then, I guess I have seen her cat form _only once_ …"

Akane didn't voice how Ranma was possibly the only red cat in existence with a pigtail because she really loved her sister. "Sure, I will start to prepare the bath, sis."

* * *

While she waits the tub to fill up with hot water, Akane scratched Ranma's head, an attempt to soothe both her and her feline friend while trying to figure out why her friend freaked out.

Apparently, Ryoga thought that she was a guy because she went to an all-boys school. While not an incredibly out there conclusion – it was a male only school and nobody expects a girl to attend such place – it seemed that he also thought that Ranma had fell on the Spring of The Drowned Girl, like himself did. This made Akane think for a moment about the original plan of Ranma's father to turn her into a boy using Jusenkyo.

She felt a chill go down her spine. She didn't actually know how she would react to a male Ranma showing up at her door for an engagement, but she could assume that she probably wouldn't react well. The entire prospect of someone else deciding stuff for her is kind of a troubling one, especially with the entire Kuno and The Hentai Horde situation.

How would she look anyway? Would she still have red hair? Ryoga's changed to blond for some weird reason. But she guessed that those thoughts wouldn't get her anywhere, it was not part of this instance of reality anyway.

Anyway, why Ranma had acted that way? She acted in a way that was eerily familiar to her, but Akane couldn't pinpoint it exactly… Ah! Wait! It was like… It was a bit like when her friend Yuka discovered that the boy she liked dumped her because she "was like a background character".

A ridiculous reason if Akane has ever seen one. Long brown hair may be a bit bland, but most people don't look like the main character of an anime either, a lot of people would be single if that was a valid point.

But that wasn't quite like what Ranma had either. It was similar, but it couldn't be the same thing, not at all. The prospect was almost laughable.

Who would even have broke Ranma's heart?

Ryoga? Did she have a crush on him? Did his dismissal of her gender hurt her feelings?

That didn't sound quite right either, but it was the best she could come up with. Maybe she should just ask her what happened.

SPLASH!

"AAAAAAAAAGH! WHAT HAPPENED!?" screamed the red head.

Akane was immediately hit with a thought that didn't have anything to do with her past line of questioning.

"What happened to your clothes?"

"Huh?" Ranma suddenly looked at herself, she was completely naked with the girl she has a crush on intently looking at her. She got very red and tried to cover what she could. "I-I dunno, maybe it's still at Furinkan? I just remember trying to punch Ryoga and…" she suddenly got quiet when she actually remembered what had happened before she blacked out.

"No, that doesn't sounds right," she said oblivious to Ranma's sudden quietness, "See, the first time you transformed, you were using clothes, sure, they were some very old and tattered gi like your father's, but they were there! Now you're just naked." She took another look at her naked body, which made Ranma retract to herself even more, face almost as red as her hair. "It's like a continuity mistake on a movie or something."

Ranma snorted. "I don't know, maybe it's because it was the same thing I was using when I got cursed? I don't remember changing my clothes a lot since I got cursed and I honestly don't even remember much of what happened in China, I spent most of the time over there as a c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-… the Red Demon thing I turn into!" She then angrily turned her eyes away from the bluenette. "Who cares about that, anyway!? Magical curses shouldn't even exist, why they should make sense!?"

"Calm down, Ranma!" she grabbed one of her arms, trying to soothe her friend. "I care about your curse! It's a serious problem if you go feral every time you turn into a cat!"

"Like I can do something about it!" she exclaimed taking her arm away from the other girl. God, did she really need to be nice at a time like this? "I can't even go back to China to find the same Spring Ryoga fell into because the Joketsuzoku would just kill me!"

"Wait, what!? Why?" How many people did this girl have after her nice ass!? … _Wait a minute, what did her brain just said?_

"…I would rather not talk about what happened to me." Ranma looked away again, her voice bringing Akane back to the bathroom.

"Ranma…" she said with a pleading tone.

"No! Why do you care anyway!? We barely know each other!" the redhead exclaimed.

"I care because we're friends! I don't need other reason!" Akane retorted with exasperation. What was going on? Why she was acting this way with her?

"Argh!" Ranma splashed water with an angry move of her arms. "Just… Just leave me alone! I need to clean myself! GET OUT!"

"Geez! You don't need to ask like that!" The youngest Tendo sister then got up and left the redhead alone to her thoughts. _What is even happening? Is she really that worked up about the Ryoga thing?_

* * *

While Akane went away, oblivious to what was actually happening, Ranma couldn't help but cry to herself when she was sure that she wasn't going to be heard.

"Stupid, stupid…!" she berated herself with an almost inaudible whisper. "Like she would feel the same for you, only because she doesn't like the boys at school, _doesn't_ means she is a lesbian! You freak-of-nature ass should know this already!"

While she sobbed a bit more for some time, unable to deviate her thoughts to anything else.

This would be easier to bear if she wasn't stuck at this house for the foreseeable future. She dealt with broken hearts before, but at least she had the luxury of always being on the run and training, too much physical exercise keeping her from dwelling on such thoughts. When you're hunting for your own food and fighting for survival, you can only care about the immediate future and nothing else.

She didn't have time to dwell on her other failed... Dammit, she couldn't even call them love stories!

 _Sigh._

At least nowadays, she could eat an okonomiyaki without having an emotional breakdown.

* * *

At dinner, things didn't get better.

Ranma made a point of trying to ignore Akane for a reason that the brunette couldn't understand. It wasn't made better when their fathers got home and tied to convince her to use a gakuran at school instead of her usual red chinese silks and black kung fu pants.

"I'm not using a gakuran for school again, Pops!" she exclaimed while she trashed the uniform like it was made of paper. "It's not even an all-boys school again! It's mixed!"

"C'mon, Ranma, do it for your poor Pops who had his dreams of joining the Tendo and Saotome Schools ruined because his daughter refused to be a son!" tried the old man, complete with crocodile tears and a quivering voice that would be befitting of a Razzies winning actor.

"You…! Like you can pull that 'crying puppy eyes technique' on me! I'M THE MASTER OF IT! YOU CAN'T OUTMASTER THE GRANDMASTER OF THE PUPPY EYES MARTIAL ARTS!" she screamed kicking her old man in the face.

"Wait, is she really a Grandmaster of something like that!?" Asked Akane in disbelief.

"Oh, yes, *STOMP" she can scam *STOMP* anyone with her *STOMP* 'Pleading Puppy Eyes' technique, *STOMP* the Saotome School even *STOMP classify it as a forbidden technique! *STOMP*" he then grabbed Ranma's next kick to his face, "CAN YOU STOP STOMPING ME WHILE I'M TALKING TO YOUR FIANCEE, BOY!?"

"SHE ISN'T MY FIANCEE!" exclaimed both girls.

"We're just friends!" said Akane. Ranma visibly flinched at that.

"And even if I was a boy, why would I marry Akane!?" asked the redhead.

"Well, Kasumi doesn't like younger men and Nabiki would only get a man that she could scam money out of," said Soun listing everybody with his fingers. He turned to Ranma with a smile while pointing to Akane. "So it leaves my young princess here."

"You know what, fuck this! I'm not even sure why we're still on about this marriage stuff!" then the Saotome girl stomped out of the room, but not before screaming. "WHY WOULD I MARRY SUCH AN UNCUTE TOMBOY ANYWAY!?"

"WHAT!?" Akane turned around angrily, but the redhead was already gone. She tried to scream at her anyway "WHY YOU CALLED ME THAT, YOU IDIOT TOMATO HEAD!?" she then stomped after her, but she couldn't find the Saotome girl anywhere in the house.

Everybody left in the room just observed everything with an awkward silence.

"Oh, my…"

"Ok, what the hell just happened?"

"Saotome, my friend, if you don't know, why do you think I do?"

* * *

As Ryoga ran around, he suddenly noticed two things.

First: somehow, Nerima had beaches. That was weird, he was pretty sure that they were nowhere near to the ocean, but he guessed that he had seen weirder anyway.

Second: He had lost Ranma.

He prayed that by now the redhead had already calmed down and didn't do a repeat of one of his stories about the Neko-ken berserker mode. Ryoga had never seen it before, but he didn't expect that Ranma could turn into a _literal_ cat when he entered that estate of mind.

"Wait, no! It's not 'he', it's 'SHE'!" the blond girl exclaimed. _Sigh._ "God, that's so weird! I thought she was a man! How the hell I'm supposed to fight with a girl!?"

A girl that can kick though a meter of concrete, sure, but still a girl. It wasn't honorable!

While she was rambling to herself, two guys that smelled like rotten grapes approached the short blond girl. It was weird that someone was walking on the beach at that hour, but Ryoga wasn't someone to judge other people's hobbies.

"Hey, sweetheart," said the one with a mermaid tattoo on his right arm. "Why such a cutie like you is walking so late at night?"

"I was looking for… a friend." Was Ranma her friend? Can you consider someone a friend when you want to kill because they were responsible to turn you into a girl through a curse that you got on your path of vengeance? She mocked him a lot for getting lost around his own room, sure, but she always offered to help him to go to school and back to his house…

"Well, what kind of jackass would leave a girl like you wandering alone when there's such… _unsavory_ people roaming this place at night?" said the other guy, this one with a tattoo of a koi fish on his left shoulder. "Let's ditch the guy you're waiting, he is probably not even half the man we are!"

Then the guy with the koi tattoo did something that reminded Ryoga why exactly he wanted to kill Ranma in the first place.

"Take your FILTHY hands out of MY BUTT!" she screamed while she grabbed the guy's hand and crushed it with easy.

When he heard his buddy scream in agony, the guy with the mermaid tattoo tried to punch her, but was quickly dealt with a swat on his face like he was a fly. He landed on an island that was so far on the horizon that Ryoga almost couldn't see it.

"And for your information, my friend is 12 times more of man than you dirty bastards are, and SHE IS A GIRL!" she punctuated the last scream with a kick on his chin, which made him land on the same island that his friend landed.

There, now they wouldn't be alone.

Like she was now.

 _Sigh_.

She needed to find Ranma again.

* * *

Akane slept alone on her room that night.

Ranma decided to do a little bit of a nostalgia trip and sleep under the stars with the Tendo's roof as her bed.

At breakfast, they avoided looking at each other. More accurately, Ranma refused to look Akane in the eyes and the Tendo girl took offense on it, hmph'ing annoyingly at her friend's behavior.

On their way to school, they didn't talk either. Not even when the mysterious old lady with an water can and some serious ninja skills tried to make the redhead all wet. For some reason, she was extra annoyed that day.

When the Hentai Horde attacked, they dispatched everybody without a single battle banter, not even when they did another tag team attack against Kuno. In fact, everybody thought that today's beating was extra creepy without the lighthearted commentary by the two martial artists.

At class, everybody could notice the tension between the two girls. Whispers and rumors about a lover's quarrel spread like fire on the school grounds, making both of them even more angry (again, for opposite reasons.)

When break finally came, Akane launched a look at Ranma, trying to see if she was out of her funk, maybe then she would finally start to talk to her again.

No sell, she was making a point to concentrate very hard at the tree that Kuno usually hides before coming out to fight them.

"Hmph!" and with that, the Tendo girl went to talk with her friends.

Obviously, they were also curious about the new estate of things between the two fighters.

"What's wrong between you and Ranma?" was the first question of many on the bombardment of questions when they finally reached the privacy of their spot on the rooftop.

"She looked pissed at you! Did you punch her?" asked Yuka.

"What!? No! We haven't even sparred yet!"

"Then maybe you hurt her feelings?" asked Sayuri. "I did more or less the same thing when me and Yuka fought over that one time, remember?"

"Maybe, but I don't think I destroyed by accident some toy she had since she was a kid!" retorted Akane. Then she remembered something. "I think she got a broken heart, to be honest."

"Oh? Does that have anything to do with that show you, Ranma and that Ryoga guy made?" asked Sayuri.

"Honestly, what happened then? That cat thing was very scary, but it was cool that that blondie just came out of nowhere to save us!" said Yuka with relief and a bit of admiration.

"Well, you were there, right?" asked the Tendo girl.

"Way there in the back, but yeah."

"See, she just… broke after Ryoga said that he thought she was a guy pretending to be a girl because… she was tricking 'a poor lesbian girl'" said Akane with an annoyed tone, which made her friends laugh, something that made the brunette really red and angry. "SHUT UP! I'M NOT A LESBIAN!"

"Sure, sure! And you aren't interested in boys just because you think they're ALL perverts!" said Sayuri between laughs.

"THEY ARE!" she screamed. Then without thinking much, she gave an example. "That Ryoga guy? I think he is a pervert because HE was the blond girl who saved your asses!" Exclaimed Akane.

"Wait, what!?" exclaimed both of her friends in unison.

"It's some magical curse thingy, when he gets wet, he turns into a girl." She then huffed. "I bet he spends a lot of time looking at herself in the mirror!"

"What the hell? That can't be real!" said Yuka.

"We aren't in a manga, Akane, stuff like that doesn't happen!" said Sayuri.

"You see me OHKO dozens of guys every morning, why it's hard to believe in magic?"

"That's because it's just martial arts!" exclaimed Sayuri, her ponytail flailing around in negation, trying to swat the impossibility of this like a horse swats a fly. "I can accept that you can punch through a 10' inches wooden door with enough training, but a magical curse that transform you into a girl!? That ignores the Law of Conservation of Mass! Where the extra mass would go!? Her boobs!?"

"Pff, physics are overrated on the world of martial arts." Snorted Akane. "Besides, that's what happened and that's why he tried to kill Ranma, he followed her to China and fell on one of the cursed springs of the special training ground she went."

"Why so much work to go after her if he wasn't after her before falling on that spring?" asked Yuka, seemingly trying to deviate the subject to something that she could wrap her mind around to.

"I dunno, Ranma said that they used to be friendly rivals or something…" Akane wasn't actually sure that would even be a good reason either, it's not like rivals meet all the time. But she was rather glad that they didn't seem to make an association with the red cat and Ranma yet.

"WAIT, do you think he has a crush on Ranma!?" Sayuri and Akane went wide-eyed with their friend's suspicion.

"I dunno, I thought Ranma might have one on Ryoga yesterday!" Akane said while her brain rushed. "Wait, but Ryoga is a boy, why would he…"

"OH, MY GOD! IT'S BOYS LOVE!" exclaimed Yuka.

"What!?" exclaimed both Akane and Sayuri.

"It makes sense! You said that Ryoga thought that Ranma was a boy, right?"

"Yeah, that cheap father of hers put her on an all-boys school for some weird reason."

"What? …Uh, questions for later." she said trying to not interrupt her thought flow. "See, I think Ryoga has a crush on Ranma, that's why he followed her all the way to China with an excuse of rivalry!"

"That's still crazy, but way more likely." Agreed Sayuri.

"But Ranma is a girl!" exclaimed Akane. "You just said that you think Ryoga likes boys!"

"Yeah, that's the tragic part, isn't it?" exclaimed Yuka. She promptly made a little dramatic gesture with her arms, wrapping herself in a self-hug of sadness. "Oh, the tragedy of love! Imagine what is like to have your heart broken when you discover that the one you love isn't even attracted to the same gender you are to!"

Somewhere isolated in the school, a lonely Ranma sneezed with a mouth full of rice and felt like sobbing a bit again.

"Well, that's the most probable theory, I think." Said Akane thoughtful. While she never thought about what was like to love someone of the same sex, she could at least relate to having a crush on someone who can't return your feelings.

It still hurts her to see how Dr. Tofu acts all silly with love when he is near Kasumi. Her older sister seems oblivious to it all, but it was clear that she somewhat enjoyed his company even when he got all crazy and stuff. At least Akane could accept that her sister was probably a better match to him, being all girly and motherly…

"That still doesn't makes sense, though" said Sayuri interrupting the Tendo girl self-pitying.

"Why do you think that?" asked Yuka.

"If Ryoga was the one who broke her heart, then why she is mad at Akane?" the other brown-haired girl said. "I mean, it almost looks like she is trying to cut ties with Akane because she thinks that it… will... hurt… less…" she slowed down with realization. She then turned to Akane. "Akane, you did scream that you're not a lesbian at that time, right?"

"Obviously! I'm pissed that people think that me and Ranma are two perverted girls dating!" Akane said with a huff while her face got red with anger. Yes, it was anger, she refused to think it was something else.

"What if… what if Ranma's crush wasn't Ryoga, but YOU!" exclaimed Sayuri with emphasis.

"WHAT!?" exclaimed the other two friends.

"You think Ranma is a lesbian!?" asked the Tendo girl with indignation. "Only because she is a bit of a tomboy, doesn't means that she is a lesbian!" she refused to believe that, she couldn't believe that! _They bathed together, she took a great view of MY BODY! She can't… she can't like other girls…!_

"That makes even more sense, though!" exclaimed Yuka. "She is always using those Chinese clothes that look more like they're made for boys than girls!"

"She doesn't have a lot of clothes, that's all!" exclaimed Akane. "She didn't have a lot of time to buy something nice and girly for herself while travelling, it would be impractical for her!"

"That's bullshit, Akane! There's more girly kung fu looks, you should know that with that huge collection of martial arts movies you have!" exclaimed Yuka.

"That just makes her a tomboy, not a lesbian! She even refused to use a gakuran when her father offered one!" she was grasping at straws, but she needed to tell herself… NO, them! Them! She needed to tell them that Ranma didn't like other girls!

"Maybe, but she did go to an all-boys school for a while, right?" Akane nodded nervously at Sayuri question. "Then why didn't she go on dates with the boys there?"

" _Maybe_ they were all gay like Ryoga!"

"Pfft, you don't seriously think that a school with only one gender attending means that everybody there is gay, right?" asked Sayuri. "I mean, sure, there's always someone that is…"

Somewhere at Sr. Hebereke's School for Girls, a young lady using a gymnastics leotard interrupted her practice because she sneezed in the middle of a jump, making her tangle herself with her ribbon. She cursed the unseen witch that hexed her.

"…But not everybody is! That's not how it works!" finished Sayuri.

"WHATEVER! RANMA ISN'T A LESBIAN! SHE CAN'T BE A LESBIAN! WE… WE… NO, SHE ISN'T!" then Akane got up and angrily stomped away from her friends. She needed to get away before they noticed how red she was, not noticing that she had already failed horribly at that.

They only observed in silence as she angrily slammed the door to the rooftop close.

"She is in denial." Sayuri said.

"She started the Path of Tsundere." Completed Yuka with a completely serious expression.

Her friend gave her a pointed look.

"Don't be such an otaku, Yuka."

"You're one to talk, you nerd."


	6. Chapter 5 - The Supreme Sports Uniform

**Author's Foreword:**

Heeeeeeeyy, long time no see!

To be honest, this chapter was written a long time ago, I just wasn't sure about it and when I'm not sure about a story, I like to let it simmer down a bit and then come back to see if I would like to change anything about it. To my surprise, I actually _don't_ want to change anything about it besides some wording, the plot is still intact in relation to the first time I wrote it.

I'm also correcting some wording from past chapters too. While my English isn't the best, it's still good enough for me to review some stuff that I misspelled and some weird wording. I think that I still need a beta, though. Correcting things myself kinda takes a long time to do, especially when English isn't my first language and I'm at best average at it.

I'm also not very good writing Ranma's accent for the same reason. Any accent, actually. How does accents in English language even works?

Anyway, let's go to the chapter, Kodachi finally enters the stage!

xxx

* * *

 **Chapter 5 – The Supreme Sports Uniform**

As she wandered through Furinkan's corridors, Akane realized that she didn't know how to deal with this bullshit.

 _Ranma likes girls._

 _She has a crush on you._

Nonononononono, that wasn't it! There must be something else to explain her odd behavior. Maybe it was some lingering effect from the Neko-ken mode, she _did_ try to attack her when she turned into a cat yesterday, so maybe her sanity is just a bit shaken?

 _Would you really prefer that instead of her being a lesbian?_

Urgh, no, that would be too horrible.

 _I mean, if you think about it, it explains why she was so red when you first met…_

NO!

Alternate explanation, quick!

Maybe it really is about Ryoga, after all? Yuka's theory about why he followed Ranma around the world is insane, but pretty much everything around the redhead girl _is._

Although, if he really is gay, then it wouldn't work.

 _He does turn into a girl, though._

But he likes boys!

 _No, you suppose he likes boys, maybe he just likes Ranma, and Ranma likes girls, so he and Ranma could actualy…_

NONONONONONO!

~LA-LADI-LA-LU-LA~!

NOT LISTENING BECAUSE YOU'RE WRONG!

Ranma isn't a lesbian! She isn't a pervert like the boys who try to fight Akane to date her! They didn't even get to spar yet!

 _Yeah, but both of you already have seen each other naked._

IT WAS JUST AN INNOCENT BATH!

 _Sure, but you did check her ass._

 _Her damn fine ass._

Don't forget her perky round boo- NO, WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR GAME, BRAIN?

 _Damn, almost got you there._

SHUT UP! I DON'T LIKE GIRLS! RANMA DOESN'T LIKE GIRLS! AND SHE ISN'T GOING TO DATE RYOGA BECAUSE HE TURNS INTO A GIRL AND IS GAY!

 _Somehow, that wording doesn't sounds right._

ARRRRRRGH!

Obviously, this internal struggle wasn't subtle at all. While she didn't voice her thoughts aloud, Akane's path was full of destruction of property as she walked through doors without opening them and even ignored an impromptu attack by Kuno, who felt really depressed that she didn't even seem to notice that she had broken his bokken with her head.

In fact, as her thoughts whirled around trying to find alternate explanations for whatever Ranma was feeling and ' _why the hell she cared in the first place!'_ she didn't notice that the source of her battle in the center of her mind didn't wait for her to go home until she suddenly noticed that she was alone in class.

Looking around, she voiced how pissed and frustrated she truly was.

"Did she just fucking ditch me!?"

* * *

As soon the school bell rung, Ranma decided to ditch Akane and go home alone.

She thought that maybe she would eventually forget her feelings for the girl if she ignored her or antagonized her enough… At least having someone she liked hating her was familiar territory, she could deal with that better than having her crush trying to be nice with her when she obviously wasn't going to correspond her feelings.

That didn't mean that it wasn't a stupid plan and that she wouldn't suffer anyway, just that she liked to think that she would manage herself better that way.

She was suddenly ejected out of feeling like a piece of crushed shit on a hot day when she heard what was clearly someone having sadistic fun with weak people. She could tell because her father made similar giggles in the past whenever he found a new training book on a supposedly powerful but obscure martial arts technique.

Freaking panda man…

She jumped atop the wall and quickly found the poor souls being tortured. Three people with heavy sports equipment lying on the ground, tied up with a diamond knot shibari technique that used what looked like a long ribbon instead of a rope, while a raven-haired girl with a ponytail slapped their asses like they're little kids, but using a gymnastics club instead of a pad.

The attacker gleefully laughed like a rich anime girl. "OHOHOHOHOHOHO! I hope you're enjoying this as much as I am! Consider your peasants honored to be treated in such a pleasurable way by me, The Black Rose of St. Hebereke's School For Girls, Kodachi Kuno!"

Her next attack suddenly stopped when Ranma grabbed her club hand. "Urgh, Kuno has a sister!? God, I can't even imagine how the rest of your family is like!" She then launched the girl over her head, but she landed gracefully atop the wall.

She looked at the redhead with contempt. "Wench, who do you think you are to attack the Captain of Rhythm Gymnastics Martial Arts, Kodachi Kuno!?"

"Are you sure that you don't want to name drop your own name a bit more? Then we complete the rule of thirds!" responded Ranma dryly. The Kuno girl responded by trying to whip her with another ribbon, but the redhead just grabbed it without a problem.

"Insolent peasant!" screamed Kodachi in frustration. "You may have some skill, but that does not give you the right to be such an unpleasant mannerless little girl!"

"You're one to talk, girl!" Ranma then pulled the ribbon to get the raven-haired girl closer, but she let of the ribbon and jumped to the rooftop on the nearby building.

"Hmph! Pray that you never meet I, Kodachi Kuno, ever again! Or our next encounter will be the last!" she then disappeared while she laughed on the most annoying 'ojou-sama' way.

"And three it is!" she said with mock satisfaction. Then she turned to walk to the victims. "Tch, why the hot ones are always crazy violent nutcases?" the redhead grumbled while she busied herself into untying the other people in uniform, who revealed themselves to be girls.

"Saotome! Thanks for saving us!" the first untied girl, who had shoulder length brown hair, launched herself to glomp Ranma, followed closely by her companions. "That crazy bitch has been attacking us since we were announced as her next opponents on the Rhythm Gymnastics Martial Arts Inter-School Tournament!"

"She is so unfair!" another girl, with long black hair tied in a ponytail, said. "We decided to give her a taste of her own remedy, but…" she stopped herself, looking dejected.

"Yeah, I can see what happened, that Kodachi girl is way too much into this bondage stuff, huh?" commented Ranma.

"Well… uh, that's kinda common among Rhythm Gymnastics Martial Arts students…" said the short-haired third girl. That made Ranma do a double take on every girl there.

"Yeah, we got a bad fame because of that…" said the first girl, red as a burning ritualistic pyre under the redhead's surprised gaze.

"To be honest, I kinda enjoyed it…" said the long-haired girl.

"Ugh, stop that, Nana! You're weirding out Saotome!" said the first girl, who was probably the leader.

"Sorry, Saotome, I should've kept that to myself…"

"Ah, uh, no, that's… that's fine." Ranma said while trying to not think too much about the accusations she got about being a 'Mistress' back at school. She tried to change subjects. "A-Anyway, you don't look like you can fight on this match if it's soon."

"Oh, we don't thanks to that bitch! The match is the next Saturday, but I don't think we'll be ready…" the Nana girl said dejected.

"WAIT! Saotome, you can go as our substitute!" said the brown-haired leader happily.

"What!?"

"Yeah, I think one of members who can't compete anymore is about your size! Just borrow her leotard and you can go fight against that lunatic bitch!" the short-haired ravennette said excitedly.

"Exactly that, Kaoru!" congratulated the leader. "Please, Saotome, help us! We need to win, we haven't won a match in seven years!"

"Argh, no, I didn't ever heard about Rhythm Gymnastics Martial Arts until today! How do you expect me to learn it in a week!?"

It was then that the wall behind them EXPLODED because a blond girl walked _through_ it like it was as strong as rice paper, prompting a bunch of girly screams from everyone looking at that.

"What the..!? How the hell I went from a Tea House to the street!?" she exclaimed. "Freaking traditional paper doors!"

"Who the hell are you!?" the blond girl did a double take when she heard her rival's voice.

"Ranma…!? What are you doing in Osaka!?" she then looked around. "Huh… This is Osaka, right?"

"Wait… Ryoga!? THAT'S your cursed form!?" Ranma didn't remember much of that day Ryoga returned after she turned into a cat, but now she did regret a bit not seeing sooner how _fucking gorgeous_ her old friend/rival girl mode is like. Then something clicked in her head. "AND YOU THOUGHT THAT I FELL ON THE SAME SPRING AS YOU!"

"That…! That's because I always thought you were a guy!" she defended herself.

"I've always been a girl, you freaking moron!" the other cursed girl retorted. "I just wasn't this developed when we went to school together!" she then grabbed her own boobs to make a point without really thinking about it too much because she was REALLY frustrated today!

That shameless display made Ryoga blush with a cute frustrated expression made extra moe because of her little feral fangs. _Nope, stop that, hormones_ , thought the redhead _._

 _AND STOP MAKING ME SHOW OFF MY BOOBS TO HER!_

"W-Whatever! Because you didn't show up to our fight, I had to follow you and ended up like this!" she gestured to her freaking hot body with all the right curves that Ranma was fighting really hard to not notice because _oh god, this is so weird!_ "Do you even have an idea what is like to be harassed around because a bunch of drunk sailors think they can have their way with you!?"

"Are you fucking serious!? Of course I know! I've met all sorts of disgusting people since Pops forced me to travel around!" she exclaimed in disbelief.

"It's extra-hard when you're born a guy and then turns into a girl because of a magical curse though!"

"I can't fucking believe you! Are you seriously trying to out-victim me!? UN-FUCKING-BELIEVABLE!"

"…Ryuko, do you know what is happening?" asked Kaoru, watching the display confused.

"I have no idea, Kaoru." Responded the leader. "Anyway, we need to get back to the point before Saotome starts to fight this one too!" she urged to the other girls.

She cleared her throat and tapped Ranma's shoulder. "WHAT!?" was the angry response Ryuko got, which made her crawl a bit to herself like a snail drenched in salt. Looking at what she had done, Ranma apologized. "Sorry, sorry, this idiot gets into my nerves!"

"HEY!"

"That's fine, Saotome, just let's get back on track." Ryuko then inhaled a bit before repeating her question. "Can you help us, Saotome? Please, on our honor as students of Rhythmic Gymnastics Martial Arts, we plead for your help." Then the three girl made a bowing seiza to the redhead.

"I… uh, dammit, don't do that! I can't refuse something like that!" Ranma exclaimed nervously. "I don't even know how to use your style!"

"Wait, did you say Martial Arts Rhythm Gymnastics?" Ryoga asked.

"Yes." The three girls confirmed in unison.

"Oh, I do know that! I can teach Ranma how to do it." She exclaimed happily.

"Wait, what!?" said Ranma at the same time the girls exclaimed happily "Really!?"

"Yeah, mom used to practice and I was her training partner."

"I, uh, well… Then why don't YOU go fight for them? You're already a pro, right!?" pleaded the redhead. Before Ryoga could even responded, the leader of the girls responded:

"No, she can't, she isn't a Furinkan student."

"Wha-!? I, ugh, dammit, FINE! I accept it, I'll learn this stupid thing from Ryoga and fight on your stupid match against that stupid sadistic evil bitch!"

"That's the spirit, Saotome!" cheered the girls.

"Dammit…" she felt defeated. She then turned to her now-blond-girl friend/rival. "Let's go to the Tendo Dojo, grab my hand because I JUST KNOW that you'll get lost if I'm not touching you!"

Ryoga got really red with embarrassment. "Sh-Shut up! It's not my fault if my family is cursed with bad direction!"

"Yeah, right, just shut up, Blondie! Hold firmly!" she then forcefully grabbed the Hibiki girl's hand, making both even more red with embarrassment.

As they went on their own way, the team of Rhythm Gymnastics shouted. "Don't worry, we know where Akane's house is! We'll just take the equipment there!" to which the redhead waved in acknowledgement.

* * *

Akane decided to stop by an ice cream shop to chill doan her nerves with a good ol' chocolate ice cream, making her miss the plot development happening just a few blocks over.

It was understandable then, that she didn't react very well to suddenly finding both Ryoga and Ranma in tight fitting leotards in dojo.

Especially because the redhead was all tangled in some sort of ribbon while the blond grabbed said ribbon in a way that she couldn't tell if she was trying to help or binding the petit girl while they had an audience of three girls similarly skimpily dressed.

In fact, Akane kind of freaked out.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS RITUALISTIC BDSM DUNGEON SHIT!?"

"Ok, this, uh, this has a perfectly reasonable explanation, I swear!" exclaimed Ryoga putting her arms in front of her defensively.

"THERE'S NO WAY THAT A REASONABLE EXPLANATION LEADS TO THIS!"

Ranma grunted with effort to try to move herself to look at Akane. "And you're right, *humf* there's an UN-reasonable explanation to this, but that doesn't matters right now BECAUSE SOMEONE SHOULD UNTIE ME RIGHT NOW!"

"Ah, right! Let me just…" then the blond girl got back to trying to untangle the petit redhead.

It was then that Akane felt someone lightly tapping her arm, taking her out of this accidentally erotic scene.

"Sorry, Akane!" it was one of the girls watching the ridiculous scene. She knew she was familiar, but not really from where. "We just needed someplace to at least introduce Ranma to the basics of Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics!"

Then it hit the Tendo girl. "Ah! You're from Rhythmic Gymnastics Club!"

"Yeah! I'm Ryuko Amazume, the captain, and those two over there are Nana and Kaoru!" she said excitedly.

"Hey." Complimented Kaoru with a casual wave.

"Hello, nice to see you well, Akane-san." Nana smiled gently.

"Hello!" complimented the Tendo girl with a bowl, but she quickly jolted back when she realized something. "Wait, you're teaching Rhythmic Gymnastics to Ranma? Why?" That kinda came from nowhere to Akane.

"Ah, no, it's _Martial Arts_ Rhythmic Gymnastics!" explained Ryuko. "See, we have an upcoming match next week, but we don't have anyone in condition to compete thanks to that crazy highschool dominatrix that is the captain of our next opponents!" she said with a venom that made a hole on the floor of the dojo, but quickly brightened again when she completed. "So, Saotome-san gently offered to help us!"

"More like arm-wrestled my emotions and honor as a martial artist until I accepted!" Ranma situation actually got worse with the blond girl's attempts at freeing her. "C'MON, RYOGA, I'M STILL FEELING A WEIRD KNOT BETWEEN MY LEGS!"

"It would be faster if you didn't keep squirming around inside this freaking ribbon cocoon!"

"That's because every time you pull something, the ribbon rubs weird places, can you fucking stop that!?" she said with a very red face, trying to ignore said weird places.

"How the hell I will free you then!?" Ryoga exclaimed in an attempt to not think about Ranma's 'weird places'. "You heard the girls, if I cut this ribbon, it's coming from my pocket! I don't have no money for this, pal!"

"Can you two shut up!?" Akane screamed, this was a bit too much for her and her weird feelings about Ranma. "You're making this shit extra weird with this…! This…! This fucking weird foreplay while you're using some fetish gear that leaves almost nothing to the imagination!"

"WHAT!?" Exclaimed the five girls in leotard.

"How dare you to insult our uniforms!?" screamed the captain.

"Leotards are the supreme sport uniform!" exclaimed Kaoru.

"They're comfy, elastic and very easy to move!" explained Ryoga passionately.

"Not to mention they really show off your body!" added Nana.

"And mine is even a bit like my Chinese silks! I kinda like it!" defended Ranma.

Akane was taken aback by the five angry glares she got from the group of girls in skimpy clothing. It was like seeing a gang of possessed hungry cats preparing themselves to jump over an unsuspecting kid eating a tuna sandwich.

"Wh-Whatever! Just don't make weird noises while you're practicing!" she then turned around and went to the living room as fast as she could.

She plopped herself near the dinner table, where her older sister quickly offered a glass of water that she gladly accepted.

"Jesus, what the hell happened between school and now?" she wondered aloud.

"Oh, Ranma-chan said that those girls over there where attacked by someone from other school and then she saved them from the 'crazy ojou-sama from hell'. So, they wanted Ranma to help them win the match because they can't do it themselves because of their injuries." Kasumi, unwitting Miss Exposition.

"They explained that to me already, I just don't understand why Ryoga is also here playing dominatrix!" Akane couldn't believe in what is happening right now at her dojo. Does that means that she wasn't that far off with her theory about Ryoga? Was Ryoga just into Ranma instead of just being gay!?

"You mean the blond girl?" Akane nodded when she caught her eldest sister's question. "I think she said her mom was a pro in the sport and offered to help Ranma-chan to learn it until the match." She responded with a gentle smile. "She seems to be a pretty good friend of Ranma-chan, right?"

The gears in Akane's mind started to spin faster than one could sing a cappella the intro to "Runnin' in The 90s". Her thoughts in full throttle, she reached to a lot of different questions.

Did Ryoga give up on killing Ranma and that's why he was helping?

Is Ryoga trying to compensate for thinking that she was a guy?

Is Ryoga taking advantage of Ranma, doing exactly what he had accused her of doing to Akane!?

 _Is he trying to use their strained relationship to take Ranma away from her?_

Wait, where this last one came from!?

 _What if Ranma actually corresponds?_

Don't be ridiculous! Ranma would never…

 _Date a boy? Date a girl? Choose wisely, because either one will hurt you._

NO! That's not what this is about!

 _Is this about the heartbreak you stupidly made Ranma go through, then?_

No, this is about a bunch of girls in fetish gear taking advantage of Ranma in my family's dojo RIGHT FUCKING NOW!

 _Yeah, keep telling yourself that, it's gonna do wonders to the current estate of affairs._

Urgh! You're being impossible today, Brain!

 _Hey, I'm not the one being stupid about a girl who likes you!_

YOU'RE ME! YOU'RE BEING AS STUPID AS I AM BEING!

 _So, you admit that you're being stupid then?_

…

"…Dammit, I walked right into that one." Commented Akane to herself.

"Did you say something, Akane?" asked Kasumi.

She waved her sister's question. "Nothing, just talking to myself."

"Hmmmm, should I call Dr. Tofu and get some special medicine prescription for you?" she asked in a gentle tone with a hint of motherly worry.

Akane quickly corrected her before she went to get Ritalin from the family doctor. "No, it's nothing like that! I'm just worried about Ranma and this weird thing she got into, that's all!" she sighed exasperatedly. "I mean, nothing normal happens to her and her father took so much advantage from her! What if those girls are doing the same, huh? What if they end up forcing Ranma to enter the Rhythmic Gymnastics club and she ends up getting into that bondage crap that I KNOW that they're into!? WHAT IF THEY TURN RANMA INTO A PERVERT WHO LIKES OTHER GIRLS!?"

"THAT'S WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!?"

 _Oh, God, please, tell me you just didn't fuck me in the most horrible way possible._ Akane slowly turned around and confirmed that yep, the forces that reign the universe sure hate her with the power of a thousand suns.

Standing just behind her, still tied and being bride-carried by Ryoga, Ranma had a red face full of flashing emotions. Tears started to run over her cheeks and she snarled in anger.

"No, Ranma… it's not like that, I just…!" she fumbled through her explanation and the redhead took the attack of opportunity to interrupt her.

"You think I'm a pervert! You think that I'm a pervert because I like girls!"

"Wait, you really like girls!?" Akane felt a chill go down her spine.

"I do! And I'm not a pervert because of that!" Ryoga felt a bit awkward with being forced into this exchange, especially because Ranma squirmed around with each sentence.

"Wait, no! I don't think you're a-"

"BUT YOU JUST SAID YOU THINK THAT GIRLS WHO LIKE GIRLS ARE PERVERTS!"

"Nononono, see, if you told me before, I would underst-"

"NO, you woldn't! That's why I didn't say anything sooner, I wanted to confirm if you were open to the idea!" Ranma started to hiccup with all the crying.

"What!? Wait, so you really had a crush…"

"ON YOU! YES! FINALLY YOU UNDERSTAND! TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH!" she finished with a very tired huff mixed with sobs and hiccups.

Silence overrode the living room. They could faintly hear a distant, but somewhat familiar feminine voice, scream 'Dammit, I'm losing all the fun down there! Freaking broken bones, heal faster!'

Akane quickly picked her jaw from the floor and tried to rebut. "W-well, you weren't exactly open about it!"

"I don't think you understand… I was trying to go slow with this! I didn't want to scare you! I wanted to at least be friends before you freaked out!"

"We are friends!"

"Can we really be friends when you think I'm a pervert!?"

"I... uh…!"

"I thought so." Ranma then turned her head to face Ryoga. "Let's get somewhere else to find something to cut this dammed ribbon cocoon."

"Ranma, I…" Ryoga didn't know where he was going with that, but Ranma didn't leave any time for him to come up with something.

"Shut up and just do it!"

Ryoga sighed and carried the redhead out of the living room, leaving everyone in silence.

Kasumi slowly approached her shell-shocked little sister, patting her head to comfort the girl. They stayed in silence for a moment, until Akane turned to hug her sister and started to sob in her skirt.

 _Akane, you royally fucked up everything._

 _Freaking moron._

* * *

The silhouette of the Black Rose of St. Hebereke's School for Girls contrasted with the moon when she jumped over the walls of the Tendo Household.

Originally, she was planning to infiltrate her competitor's bedroom, one little tramp called Ranma Saotome. She was going to fight with honor before the match started, because that's the true way of such a marvelous upper class lady like her!

However, she ended up overhearing something interesting…

While psychological warfare wasn't something that she ever deployed, she always wanted to try her hand at it. And her opponent made for the perfect guinea pig…

She made a mental note to interrogate her brother about what he knew about the little tramp, his unending tirades about his "goddesses of war" had gave insight enough for Kodachi to at least determine that one of them was her opponent. If she can translate his madness into something more understandable, she can probably determine further weakness that she can exploit.

She did know one thing for starters: that 'Akane' girl was one of such exploitable opportunities.

Her evil rich bitch laugh soared through the moonlighted night, giving many kids and their parents nightmares until the sun came around the next day.

* * *

Ranma and Ryoga entered on an agreement that they would sleep together on the guest room. They had to share the space with the panda, making it a bit cramped, something that did not help at all with the mood.

The blond girl turned around to see that her… friend? Rival? Uh, whatever, to see that the other girl was still awake, looking at the ceiling with a passively sad expression, lost in thoughts. With barely a whisper, Ryoga started a conversation.

"…So, you like girls."

She snorted without turning to him. "What, you too have a problem with that?"

"Not at all."

She turned to look at Ryoga.

"You see, my family is a bit… open." The blond hesitate a bit when she got an enquiring and curious look from the redhead. Relying on her guts, she proceeded. "Because of my family's… condition… it's a bit hard for us to meet each other. That's especially hard for my parents, so they indulge in… less than common kinds of relationships between the moments they're apart."

"Wait, are you saying that…?"

"I think my mom is what people call bisexual, but I'm not sure, I don't know much about these things." Ryoga shrugged, continuing. "You're not exactly weird to me _because_ of that, that's what I'm saying."

Ranma went in silence for a moment.

"Thanks, Ryoga." She sighed in relief.

The other girl shrugged. "No problem, I needed to make up to you for thinking that you're a boy and all…"

"Is that why you're helping me with the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics?"

"Yeah… I figured that while I still can't stand your guts, I can at least compensate for being a dumb… uh, friend…." The word felt weird on her mouth, but she guessed that was the most approximate to what her relationship with Ranma was.

"Huh… thanks." she gave a small and barely audible giggle. "I guess being a girl kinda helps you think, hehe."

"Don't ruin the moment, Ranma." The blond-girl said annoyed.

Ranma just laughed a bit more.

"It's good to have you back, buddy."

"…I guess." Ryoga then returned to her more comfortable position in the futon. "Good night, Ranma."

"G'night, Ryoga."

The redhead managed to somewhat sleep more peacefully that night.


End file.
